SOUTHAMPTON'S Odeon cinema will host the Best Short Films of the Year competition in January, showcasing the next generation of talented filmmakers.

The contest includes a selection of seven NFTS students’ short films, the majority of which have won or been nominated for major awards.

The live action, documentary and animation films will be simultaneously screened in the 16 Odeon cinemas, including Southampton, on January 17.

Audiences will be asked to get involved and ‘watch, judge and decide’ to pick their favourite film from an impressive list, which includes Present. With her sister slowly succumbing to early-onset Alzheimer’s, Beth struggles to balance her responsibilities as a carer and a mother, whilst dealing with her own fear of developing the genetic disease.

The divine gift of precognition has been bestowed to a human in The Alan Dimension. That human…is Alan. But Alan’s gift isn’t all it’s cracked up to be - he can barely foresee what’s for breakfast. And now the only person on earth who understands Alan is packing her bags to leave – Wendy has had enough of being married to ‘mankind’s next step in cognitive evolution’. Will Alan realise in time that seeing the future has blinded him to his present?

Fifteen-year-old Maddie Stone rules her school yard under the protection of her family name in Sweet Maddie Stone. But after discovering her notorious father has been arrested, she has to make his bail money or lose the yard. The more Maddie fights, the more her world spirals out of control – and the closer she gets to becoming the man she’s trying to save.

Hannah loves her Dad and always wants to be seen next to him in Patriot. But during the preparations for an anti-immigration protest at her house she is pushed out, being seen as too young. Hannah meets a teenage Romany boy and does her best to push him away but the boy won’t leave her alone, leading to consequences which turn her world upside down.

Tooega is a witch who ekes out an isolated existence on an iceberg in Fishwitch. It’s a miserable lot, and in Tootega’s case, misery hates company! Derek is a merman – more fish than man really – who spends his days joyously rollicking around the ocean, oblivious to the fact that his dreadful singing is the very reason he remains friendless. Fishwitch is the story of what happens when these two unlikely characters come together…

In A Love Story, two creatures fall in love, weaving a colourful world together. But when darkness threatens to consume one of them, the other must fight to stay together, or risk being torn apart.

When Ferris, a teenage boy with a passion for fancy pigeons, leaves school, his father finds him a job at the local factory in Ferris & The Fancy Pigeon. Ferris goes along with his father’s plan until the day the school bully he thought he’d left behind confronts him. Ferris abandons his post and the punishment his father exercises forces Ferris to finally face up to some difficult home truths.

Tickets are just £5. Visit odeon.co.uk/festivals/nfts/