Ciaran Dowd · Rebecca Shorrocks · Sunil Patel

Quiet Carriage
Starring Amit Shah & Emma Sidi
A passive man. An overactive imagination. One very noisy commute.
Hidden Art Films.
We make films with characters you recognise and voices you haven’t heard before. Stories that make you laugh, draw you in, and stay with you.
Founded by producer Adam Gregory Smith in 2014, Hidden Art Films develops new and emerging talent across live action, animation and feature films.
Meet the company ↗Festivals we’ve screened at.
A selection of the international festivals that have presented our films. Explore a film for its festival history and awards.
















Our films
Rakie Ayola · Gary Carr
Amit Shah · Emma Sidi
Julia Deakin · Pearce Quigley · Tim Key
Rosie Allerhand · Gemma Jones · Chris Keelty
Danny Sapani · Sara Powell · Harrison Madikazi · Mandisi Madikazi · Jodyanne Richardson
Sian Hill · Hisham Khan · Jamie Melrose · Max Williams
Rebecca Grant · Marlene Madenge · Alma Eno
Kate Lassman Long · Dominic Kinnard
James Askill · James Naylor · Sophie Barker
Paul Taylor · Elizabeth Guterbock · Sadie Clark · Tegan Cecil · Joel Samuels · Kyle Ross
Laura Evelyn · Liam Ballantyne
Emily Williams · Daniel Lillie
No films match your search. Try another title, cast member or filmmaker.
Stories finding their audience.
Our films have screened internationally at Academy Award-qualifying and BAFTA-qualifying festivals. Here are some of the audiences they have reached.
Hope Is Lost
Winner · Crédit Mutuel Anjou Audience Award, Animated Films · Angers 2026
Explore the film ↗Quiet Carriage
Explore the film for festival selections, awards and distinctions
Explore the film ↗Talk Radio
Explore the film for festival selections, awards and distinctions
Explore the film ↗The Snip
Explore the film for festival selections, awards and distinctions
Explore the film ↗Bold filmmakers.
Lasting partnerships.
Hidden Art Films is an independent UK production company based in the North West UK. We work with new and emerging writers and directors to develop their ideas into short and long-form films, building lasting creative relationships along the way.
Filmmaking is collaborative. It is the conversations that shape a story, the people who keep going through the long days and late nights, and the shared effort to make something that connects with an audience.
Talk to
Hidden Art Films.
For production collaborations, film enquiries and conversations about future projects.
North West UK.
About Hidden Art Films.
An independent production company working with emerging and established filmmakers across fiction and documentary, live action and animation.
The company
Hidden Art Films is an independent production company based in the North West UK, founded in 2014 by Adam Gregory Smith. We work with emerging and established writers and directors across fiction and documentary, in live action and animation, from shorts to features.
Film is made through collaboration. A story begins with someone seeing the world in a particular way, then grows through the ideas, skill and commitment of everyone who joins it.
We are interested in films that connect with an audience: through laughter, discomfort, recognition or something they cannot quite put into words. Our job is to help filmmakers find the practical route from the story they want to tell to the film they want to make.
Bold filmmakers.
Lasting partnerships.
That work takes time. It means developing ideas, asking difficult questions, bringing the right people together and staying with a project through the long days, late nights and changes of plan.
We want to build relationships that last beyond a single production—giving filmmakers room to develop their voices and make the next piece of work.
Tell us about your project ↗Adam Gregory Smith
Adam came to film from a background in marine biology, bringing a curiosity about people, their environments and the stories that shape them. He founded Hidden Art Films in 2014 to build a home for new voices and collaborative filmmaking.
His work spans fiction and documentary, live action and animation, including short films and feature development. He is particularly interested in the relationship between a filmmaker’s ambition and the practical decisions that allow a project to move forward: who needs to be involved, how the work can be made and where it might find its audience.
Adam’s industry development includes the Edinburgh International Film Festival Talent Lab, Reykjavik Talent Lab, four years with BFI NETWORK × BAFTA Crew, and Creative UK’s Creative Enterprise and Market Trader programmes.
Through Producer’s POV, he also works with emerging filmmakers on their projects, careers and production challenges—sharing experience, questioning assumptions and helping them identify a useful next step.
Mentoring with Producer’s POV ↗Making a film means navigating creative decisions, practical constraints and plenty of uncertainty. Producer’s POV brings a producer’s perspective to that process, offering mentoring, project feedback and troubleshooting for new and emerging filmmakers.
Founded by Adam Gregory Smith and operated through Hidden Art Films Ltd, Producer’s POV draws on the experience of developing and producing films. It is a place to ask questions, test assumptions and work out the next practical step for your project or career.
Support is shaped around the filmmaker: a focused conversation about a specific problem, or a longer mentoring relationship as a project develops.
For writers, directors and producers, this can mean understanding how a pitch is assessed, preparing materials, considering a project’s practical demands or identifying the decisions that need attention first.
Alongside individual support, Producer’s POV shares resources and practical approaches to the work of producing. The aim is to help filmmakers make informed decisions and move forward with a clearer sense of what their project needs.
Looking for mentoring or feedback? Explore Producer’s POV. Looking for a production company to consider your film? Use the Hidden Art Films project pitch form.
Explore mentoring at Producer’s POV ↗Mentoring
Individual conversations focused on your project, career and next decisions.
Project feedback
A producer’s perspective on your pitch, materials and the questions a project raises.
Troubleshooting
Practical discussion of the creative and production challenges holding you up.
Documentary in development
Adam is producing The Useful Time Machine, a feature documentary directed by Eno Enefiok. The project was selected among the final 15 for The Whickers Film & TV Funding Award 2026.
Eno on developing the film ↗Start with
a conversation.
For production collaborations, film enquiries and conversations about future projects.
info@hiddenartfilms.com ↗Send an enquiry
For general enquiries. Please use Pitch a Project for project applications. Do not include scripts or script links.
Find us on Instagram & YouTube.
Follow new releases, festival journeys and the people behind our projects.
North West UK.
Based in the North West of England, with creative relationships across the UK. If you are contacting us from elsewhere in the world, please include your country and time zone.
Tell us the story.
And why it’s yours.
We’re interested in distinctive characters, clear writing and directorial voices, and stories with a reason to exist. Introduce the idea, where you’re based and the partnership you’re seeking. We’ll ask for fuller information if we want to take the conversation further.
Please answer every part of each required question. Where a question contains several parts, cover each one; “not yet decided” is a useful answer.

Ratling
Completed · Submitting to festivals
When the Scout promise is broken, fourteen-year-old outcast, Freya, decides to enact revenge on her bullies at camp.
About the director
Nicole Pott is a neurodivergent film and television director drawn to bold, character-led storytelling. Her short film WanderLand was longlisted for the 2023 BAFTA Film Awards in the Short Film category. She studied Digital Film Production and Screenwriting at the University of Worcester and completed an MA in Screen Production at MetFilm School.
Awaiting its festival premiere.
In the press.
Reviews, interviews and features about our films and the people who make them.
Published features
Independent reviews, filmmaker interviews, journals and published festival profiles. Each entry identifies its source and type.
Safe Space
Filmmaker interview · Ben S. Hyland
Read the feature ↗Blue
Producer-credit feature · Deva Palmier’s debut feature
Read the feature ↗The Useful Time Machine
Filmmaker journal · Whickers final 15, 2026
Read the feature ↗S*!T
Festival-hosted short-film review
Read the feature ↗The Snip
Premiere & filmmaker interview
Read the feature ↗The Snip
Film feature & online premiere
Read the feature ↗Hope Is Lost
Review · BFI London Film Festival
Read the feature ↗Hope Is Lost
Filmmaker journal · Premiers Plans audience award
Read the feature ↗Hope Is Lost
Filmmaker journal · Cleveland U.S. premiere
Read the feature ↗Hope Is Lost
Festival profile · Audience award, 2026
Read the feature ↗Quiet Carriage
Film feature & online premiere
Read the feature ↗Talk Radio
Filmmaker interview
Read the feature ↗Talk Radio
Published festival profile · 2020
Read the feature ↗Paparazza
Film review
Read the feature ↗The Insecurities of Dill
Interview with Robert Trott
Read the feature ↗Meat Market
Film review
Read the feature ↗The Backseat
Interview with the director and producer · MANIFF 2017
Read the feature ↗The Red Ball
Introducing the Estuary on Film filmmakers
Read the feature ↗Adam Gregory Smith / Hidden Art Films
Market Trader cohort profile
Read the feature ↗Hope Is Lost
Case study · Sustainable stop-motion production
Read the feature ↗The Insecurities of Dill
Short film review · Nimisha Menon
Read the feature ↗The Insecurities of Dill
Short film review
Read the feature ↗Dole: The Series
Series review · Phil Wheat
Read the feature ↗Blue
Feature film review
Read the feature ↗The Snip
Short film review
Read the feature ↗Festival archive, film by film
Explore original festival pages, screening programmes, catalogues and award announcements. A selection, a scheduled programme and an award are identified separately.
Historic pages sometimes display current festival dates in their headers. The editions below follow the archived programme. This is a growing archive, rather than a complete list of every public mention.
The Snip4 linked records
Winner · Crystal Punt Best Short Film (audience award)
Comedy Shorts · 10 November, 19:30 · The Forum Auditorium. Edition taken from archive, not the changing site header.
Open film details ↗Hope Is Lost9 linked records
Discovering Home short-film programme
Confirms the 2025 festival programme; viewing availability varies.
Crédit Mutuel Anjou Audience Award · Animated Films
U.S. premiere · 12 April, Allen Theatre; 13 April, Cedar Lee Theatre
Shorts Program 7
Short-film competition · festival dates 23 July–2 August 2026
Day 12 · Hope Is Lost
Quiet Carriage7 linked records
Virtual edition; not described here as a physical screening.
Shorts Program 2 · catalogue page 10
Judge’s 6 · The Anvil (The Forge)
FilmBath2019 · Official catalogue PDFListed in Micro Wonders; planned programme record.
Open film details ↗Talk Radio4 linked records
Short Laughs Comedy · highlights from the Bondi comedy programmes
Flickerfest2021 · Official tour screeningCanowindra tour programme
Film and director confirmed; the page’s runtime differs from the production record.
Open film details ↗The Red Ball5 linked records
Kansas premiere · 7 October, 11:00 · Tallgrass Film Center · with Hanging Gardens
Party in the USA short-film programme
Winner · Best Animation
Open film details ↗Paparazza2 linked records
Safe Space3 linked records
The Backseat3 linked records
The Insecurities of Dill4 linked records
Safe Word programme
Athens International Film + Video Festival2018 · Official programme pageBlock 1 · The Red Lion Hotel
Open film details ↗Meat Market4 linked records
One Minute Movie selection
Best 1 Minute Short Film. Page heading says 2022 despite the URL ending 2021.
S*!T3 linked records
Block 5
Two Short Nights2021 · Official screening programmeShorts #4: Second Chances · online edition
Guilt, Then Absolution? · 6 June 2021 · Summerhall
Open film details ↗Commissions, support & industry recognition
Commissioning records, conversations about funding, and announcements from organisations supporting the films.
Quiet Carriage · Talkies Community CinemaShort-film commission · 2019 archiveTalkies’ commissioned-films archive names Ben S. Hyland and Adam Gregory Smith.
The Backseat · Mancunian MattersProducer interview · IdeasTap fundingAdam discusses the IdeasTap funding and the film’s production at MANIFF 2017.
The Red Ball · Screen SouthEstuary on Film · commissioned filmmaker profileGeorge Morgan introduces The Red Ball in the Estuary on Film programme.
The Snip · CenterFrameOfficial social announcement · SELECTS top 10CenterFrame’s selection announcement includes The Snip, directed by Ben S. Hyland. This is a showcase selection, rather than a funding-award record.
Press & screening enquiries
For approved stills, press materials or a screening enquiry, contact info@hiddenartfilms.com and include the film title.

