Hundreds of short films are released on the festival circuit yearly. We review those that spoke most to us here.
How do we find ourselves in such tumultuous times? Self-taught animator Cillian Laurence Green reminds us that the world is ours to make and that it’s not all doom and gloom.
Shot in vivid 16mm, Barcelona native Christian Avilés turns a piercing gaze on young British holidaymakers, creating a reverie of surreal seduction out of the real-life phenomenon of balconing.
French actor-director Léo-Antonin Lutinier’s debut short film guides us through beauty and destruction without judgement.
Zhang Dalei’s throwback to the 1990 Asian Games is inherently enigmatic yet rooted in ambiguity, leaving the viewer to fill in the emotional gaps.
Two characters are trapped in a colourless existence of apathy, their reality slipping away without them noticing.
Alice Brygo mixes documentary footage with computer-generated imagery to produce an intriguing, genre-defying admixture of realism and the surreal.
The ghosts of the past come face to face with the present and rural life is celebrated in Fermín Sales’ found footage documentary.
Though conceived long before artificial intelligence became the popular force it is today, Cristina Iliescu’s debut short offers a compelling reminder of our latent responsibility in the teething stages of machine learning.
Two nun-like identical twins go silently through life in an almost unconscious state, portrayed by two elegant actors that patiently wait for their portraits to be drawn.
Aziz Zoromba’s Simo offers insights into the dynamics of a culturally diverse family, but leaves out the most meaningful conversations.
Though devoid of any sound, Asteriòn is an exceptionally visceral and vivid cinematic experience.
A gruesome and eerie stop-motion fairytale, aesthetically influenced by the Brothers Grimm
Ary Zara’s intimate, beguiling portrait of a trans sex worker takes trans* storytelling in new directions.
In the north of Colombia, a group of queer activists use extravagant performative actions to denounce the disastrous exploitation by the country’s largest coal mine.
Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel’s striking visual poem proves how our capitalist way of thinking is unfit for human life and its sustainability.
