The Oscar® and BAFTA-qualifying British short film MINE FOR A MOMENT, written and directed by Kristian Lever, explores the dangerous consequences of grief and desperation, asking whether we can feel compassion for someone who commits an unforgivable act. Inspired by real events, the film follows one woman’s devastating journey as her longing to become a mother leads her into an increasingly impossible moral situation. It has won Best International Film at the LA Shorts International Film Festival and Best Short Film at the Carmarthen Bay Film Festival, qualifying it for consideration for both the 99th Academy Awards® and the BAFTA Film Awards.
After years of unsuccessful attempts to become a mother, Cheryl suffers yet another miscarriage. Unable to accept the loss, she fabricates a pregnancy for her husband Darren, who is working offshore. But when her carefully constructed reality is threatened, Cheryl makes a desperate decision: disguising herself as a nurse, she enters a maternity ward and takes a newborn baby, determined to fulfil the dream that has consumed her.
As Cheryl’s actions escalate, MINE FOR A MOMENT examines the complicated space between empathy and moral judgement. It asks how grief can distort a person’s sense of right and wrong, and whether understanding the pain behind an act can coexist with recognising its devastating consequences. Through Cheryl’s increasingly desperate choices, the film explores the emotional realities of infertility and miscarriage while confronting the limits of compassion when someone crosses a line that cannot be uncrossed.
Leading the cast is Gina Fillingham (The Responder, Too Close, Coronation Street, Ghosts) as Cheryl, alongside BAFTA Cymru Award winner Celyn Jones (Manhunt, Set Fire to the Stars, The Vanishing) as her husband Darren. Fillingham delivers a physically and emotionally demanding performance as a woman consumed by grief, while Jones brings restraint to a character navigating the couple’s shared experience of loss.
Kristian Lever is a British-Finnish writer and director whose work spans film, theatre, dance and branded content. A former internationally recognised dancer and choreographer, Lever trained at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy and Palucca University of Dance Dresden before dancing with the Hamburg Ballet. His choreography has been performed by institutions including the Royal Danish Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Hamburg Ballet and Royal Opera House, and he received the Erik Bruhn Prize for choreography. Lever has created award-winning commercials, and his previous short films have screened at Oscar- and BAFTA-qualifying festivals worldwide. His work across dance and theatre has long explored storytelling and emotional expression—an approach he now brings to character-driven filmmaking.
The film’s creative team includes London-based producer Benjy Alfreds and Director of Photography Iikka Salminen, whose credits include the Sundance-premiering feature Sebastian and A Moment in the Reeds. Production designer Ugnė Kriščiūnaitė also helped shape the film’s intimate and tense atmosphere.
Following its award-winning festival run, including its qualifying wins at LA Shorts International Film Festival and Carmarthen Bay Film Festival, MINE FOR A MOMENT enters awards season as an Oscar® and BAFTA-qualifying short. With its unflinching exploration of grief, moral transgression and the boundaries of compassion, the film invites audiences to confront an unsettling question: how far can we understand someone’s desperation when their actions cause profound harm?
