Talking Shorts

It’s a Wild World

Interview with Konstantina Kotzamani by Savina Petkova

Drawing from dreams, Greek filmmaker Konstanina Kotzamani builds a whole new world in each film, often populated with animals.

Films On The Circuit

Genealogy of Violence

Inside My Head

Review by Rafael Fonseca

Mohamed Bourouissa visualises the escape of the mind when it is not possible to escape with the body in this compelling short film about everyday racism.

Reads Lists

Listed: Top 3 of 2024

In a yearly tradition, Talking Shorts invites filmmakers, critics, and programmers to pick their three favourite short films of the year.

Reads Focus

The Camera As a Weapon: Shorts of Babylon’13

Essay by Sonya Vseliubska

For more than a decade, Babylon’13 has been documenting the war in Ukraine. In over five hundred films, the association of documentary filmmakers has adapted the camera to act as a weapon. Their work achieves the purest form of documentary cinema as a creative treatment of current events, according to John Grierson's infamous definition.

Films Retrospective

The House is Black

Poetics of Empathy

Review by Laura Stoeckler

Set in an Iranian leper colony, Forugh Farrokhzad’s The House is Black paints an intimate portrayal of human existence under the weight of marginalisation.

Happening now

Festivals

Vilnius Short Film Festival

15—21.01.2025

There’s hardly a festival I have better memories of, although the conditions seemed less than ideal: the middle of January, the icy wind whistling through the city’s pretty alleys, while everyone tried to organise their year after the...

2025 Reading List

Psilocybin Dreams

Shrooms by Jorge Jácome

Review by Zachary Seager

Affectionate Counter-Narratives
Elahe Esmaili on A Move

Interview with Elahe Esmaili by Savina Petkova

Flowing Femininity

The One Who Knows by Eglė Davidavičė

Review by Grete Kaio, Liene Helēna Nugumanova, Kamilė Zinkevičiūtė

Bathroom Blues

looking she said I forget by Naomi Pacifique

Review by Savina Petkova

See Through People

The Miracle by Nienke Deutz

Review by Daria Janke

Past the Guilt
Pavel Mozhar on Unwanted Kinship

Interview with Pavel Mozhar by Marcelina Leigh

The Truth of An Illusion
Sam Manacsa on Cross My Heart And Hope To Die

Interview with Sam Manacsa by Iris Sang

Festivals

London Short Film Festival

17—26.01.2025

Big cities can be quite overwhelming. For one, it might be difficult to keep up with your social and cultural calendar since too many exciting events take place every day. If that city happens to be London with its almost nine million...

2025 Reading List

Blurred Lines

The Oasis I Deserve by Inès Sieulle

Review by Yan Guan Rosanna Suter

Memory in Textures
Recalling Experiences Through Surfaces and Matter

Essay by Eneos Çarka

Bathroom Blues

looking she said I forget by Naomi Pacifique

Review by Savina Petkova

The World is Our Playground

Cul-de-Sac by Mário Macedo, Vanja Vascarac

Review by Marina Zigneli

Not So Gentle Giants
Alessandro Novelli on De Imperio

Interview with Alessandro Novelli by Claudius Kesseböhmer

Mirages of the Past

Chasing the Sun: El Shatt by Ana Bilankov

Review by Öykü Sofuoğlu

Return to Cuckooland
Nikola Ilić on Exit Through the Cuckoo’s Nest

Interview with Nikola Ilić by Antoni Konieczny

Embracing Uncertainty
Carlos Pereira on Slimane

Interview with Carlos Pereira by Yan Guan Rosanna Suter

Discussions

Working with partner festivals, we organise panel talks, keynotes, and other formats to foster discussions. Recordings are published here to continue the conversation online.

Discussions

It’s a Wild World

Genealogy of Violence

Inside My Head

Listed: Top 3 of 2024

The Camera As a Weapon: Shorts of Babylon’13

The House is Black

Poetics of Empathy

Happening now

Vilnius Short Film Festival

2025 Reading List

London Short Film Festival

2025 Reading List

Everything You Never Dared To Ask About Distribution

The “Short Film” and Its Audience

The Future Of Shorts: Leave The Bubble, Unleash The Shorts!