On Thu 1 Dec over 100 people came together at Watershed to celebrate the launch of Electric December 2011, Watershed's original online countdown calendar of brilliant short films from young European filmmakers, and find out who scooped some of the prestigious Electric December Awards.

We are very excited to welcome New Mexico's roving folk duo A Hawk and A Hacksaw (accordionist/drummer Jeremy Barnes and violinist Heather Trost) to Watershed this weekend. They are here to present a brand new live rescore of Soviet director Sergei Paradjanov's classic film Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors.

Electric December returns this Thursday, ready to make December just that little bit more joyous, with an outstanding online showcase of 24 short films from across Europe - one for each day of advent at electricdecember.org.Watch the trailer below to get a glimpse of the great work that's waiting for you to watch from 1 Dec.

 Our long standing friend and collaborator Seth Honnor is working from Exeter University to help people across the region develop their ideas to submit them to Sandbox. All the REACT team are experiencing a need for researchers to think more about the potential audience/demand for their ideas, so Seth has written up a series of useful prompts for academics thinking of applying:

What is the knowledge you want to transfer?

Following a fantastic buzz at the DepicT! Showcase in the afternoon, filmmakers and guests gathered on the evening of Sat 19 Nov for the 17th Bristol Encounters International Film Festival Awards Ceremony hosted by Peter Carlton to learn who'd scooped this year's DepicT! competition prizes.

Out of a dizzying 500 films from 30 countries, 14 tiny films were shortlisted for their distinctive, imaginative and engaging qualities.

Following its sell out, one-off screening which was phenomenally received this great film returns with a bang. On Sat 17 Dec we're hosting a Lover's Rock Party in the Café/Bar with live music and some very special guests.

Last month the BFI, the national body responsible for film policy and activity in the UK, invited members (members of the NFT or Sight & Sound Magazine subscribers) to nominate themselves to sit on their Board of Governors.

When two colleagues in the film world got in touch with our Head of Programme Mark Cosgrove enquiring whether he was going to apply or not, he gave the application a look – and thanks to their prompting and his own passionate supporting statement he has been accepted as one of the four prospective candidates.

Watershed is delighted to announce that Electric December returns this year from Thu 1 Dec, ready to make December just that little bit more joyous, with an outstanding online showcase of 24 short films from across Europe - one for each day of advent at electricdecember.org.

REACT is recruiting two Producers who will play a key role in curating, producing and managing the Sandbox projects, helping to catalyse and support dynamic collaborations between arts and humanities researchers and creative economy partners. For more info visit http://www.watershed.co.uk/ished/get-involved/opportunities/2011-11-11/r...

The Pervasive Media Studio is Watershed’s city-centre research space that brings together a network of over 100 artists, technologists and academics to explore the future of mobile and wireless media. Since opening in 2008, it has been situated in nearby Anchor Square.

We are thrilled that The Passion of Joan of Arc is being performed at the White Light Festival in New York this weekend (Sat 29 Oct). This collaborative project, developed in Bristol by musicians Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp) working with inspiration from Watershed, is a new live performance to the classic film (directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer in 1928) long regarded as a towering masterpiece of cinema.