A young boy and his sister wander through a field on a hazy summer’s day where
they are confronted by a gang of older boys who force the child up an electricity
pylon — with earth-shattering ramifications. Barnaby Blackburn’s devastating short British drama PYLON is a poignant exploration of fractious family relationships, the horrors siblings subject each other to, and the indelible marks they leave. The film was made with Ken Loach’s production company Sixteen Films and has qualified for the 2025 BAFTAs.
Barnaby Blackburn is an award winning writer/director. At the age of 26 he won a
BAFTA for writing promos for the BBC’s Winter Olympics coverage. In 2017 he shot his first short film and directorial debut, ‘Wale’, described by The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw as an “intriguing Hitchcockian thriller”, was shown at over 50 film festivals around the world, shortlisted for the 91st Academy Awards and nominated for a BAFTA. His second short film, ‘Dad Was’, which he describes as a eulogy for his, father whilst he’s still alive, was shortlisted for a BAFTA in 2021. He is currently working on his feature debut ‘Help Yourself’, also produced by Sixteen Films.
 
Jack Thomas O’Brien has been working at Sixteen Films for the past eight years –
and now works as a producer at the company. His upcoming feature film ‘On Falling’ produced through Sixteen Films is a co-production with Bro Cinema in Lisbon, will be sold by Goodfellas, and is financed by BBC Film, Screen Scotland & the BFI, along with the ICA. ‘On Falling’ had its world premiere at TIFF, and won the Silver Shell for Best Director in the main competition at San Sebastian. Within the two years he worked as associate producer on Ken Loach’s latest film ‘The Old Oak’, nominated for the Outstanding British Film BAFTA, and received an Executive Producer crediton Athina Tsangari’s forthcoming feature ‘Harvest’. Previous to that he took an associate producer credit on Cristian Carion’s ‘My Son’ featuring James McAvoy & Claire Foy, and has produced a number of award winning short films.
 
Ed Speleers is an award-winning British actor who most recently starred in Netflix’s global success ‘YOU’ and ‘Star Trek: Picard’ for Paramount+. Ed will next be starring in Joe Stephenson’s ‘Midas Man’ alongside Emily Watson, Eddie Marsan and Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, which will be released on Amazon at the end of October. He is widely known for his portrayal of villain Stephen Bonnet in  Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nominated series ‘Outlander’ as well as Jimmy Kent in ‘Downton Abbey’.
Other more recent credits include ‘Wolf Hall’, Andy Serkis’s ‘Breathe’ and Lars Von Trier’s ‘The House That Jack Built’. In 2017, Ed teamed up with Barnaby Blackburn to form Dark Glass Films, producing the shorts ‘Wale’ and ‘Dad Was’ together before teaming up with Sixteen Films to produce ‘Pylon’.
This stunning short has qualified for the 2025 BAFTAs.