Award-winning short ‘Contact Hours’ by Harry Richards and Rufus Love now available to watch on Vilpa Max
17 August 2026 | By Molly Lipson
Contact Hours, the award-winning short film directed by Harry Richards and written by Rufus Love, is now available to stream on Vilpa Max, a streaming service featuring award-winning short films including The Talentand BAFTA-winner Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Contact Hours follows a university caretaker who finds the body of a student who has died by suicide. The film explores the impact this discovery has on the caretaker, whose own son is also struggling, and how his guilt over what happens pushes him to confront his son.
The film won Best British Short at Sunrise Film Festival last year, and has screened at universities and colleges across the UK with Q&As igniting safe and hopeful conversations about suicide in each educational community. The film was made in partnership with suicide prevention charities and organisations including PAPYRUS, R;pple, ForThe100 and Start The Conversation. It has also been supported by HUMEN, London Nightline, The Student Grief Network and James' Place. It has been called "a powerful story of student suicide" by The Independent and "very impressive and really absorbing" by Tim Robey, Film Critic at The Telegraph. It has also featured in METRO and Variety. Harry and Rufus are thrilled that the film is now available on Vilpa Max.
