Onedotzero arrives at the BFI Southbank for its annual stint of screenings and talks on Wednesday. Now in its 13th year, the festival is renowned for its champi­oning of new talent in short films and promos, and this year’s highlights also include a retrospective of French directors/designers H5, alongside exclusive previews of the new Disney/Pixar feature film Up, and the break-dancing documentary Turn It Loose, directed by Partizan’s Alastair Siddon.

Onedotzero is free to enter, which creative director Shane Walter believes has helped it remain somewhat reces­sion-proof. “We had a shorter submis­sions window this year but still got a healthy number of admissions, there was no downturn in that respect,” he says. “It helps that it’s completely open and free to submit work – that’s still important to us.” In terms of trends that can be spotted within this year’s entries, he comments: “Last year we saw a hand-drawn aesthetic in moving image, which has continued to progress this year. We’ve seen a lot of people using digital tools to create things that look handmade. Digital has become more everyday and people are looking for other ways to express themselves. Plus it might be cheaper to make in the recession – or it seems that way…."

Trailer for Turn It Loose by Alistair Siddons, showing as part of the festival

Among the numerous programmes taking place over the four-day festival (for full details see onedotzero.com), will be the culmination of the Cascade education project. One of three strands in the festival sponsored by glue London (as part of the agency’s 10th birthday celebrations), Cascade sees a number of graduates from all over the UK, from various creative disciplines, collaborate on briefs set by glue during a series of workshops. The concepts created by the teams will be presented as part of onedotzero on September 10.

Onedotzero has commissioned Wieden + Kennedy London to design its identity this year (trailer shown top), and the agency has worked with Karsten Schmidt to create a logo that draws on the festival’s theme of ‘convergence and collaboration’. “This year we wanted to have a pure digital look to our identity but harness our community and also the idea that the festival is very open to ideas,” says Walter. “The identity will draw all the chatter around the social networks when people mention onedotzero, and that gets fed into the visual identity.” A live interactive version of the logo, which visitors can engage with via SMS and email, will be projected at the BFI during the festival. A making-of film of the identity can be viewed online here.

Video for The Child by Alex Gopher, directed by H5, who will be showing a retrospective of their work at onedotzero

Onedotzero is on from September 9-13. For full listings of what's on during the festival, visit onedotzero.com.