Competitive sections
ABELLÓN / BUMBLEBEE
FON CORTIZO – 2024 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
ABELLÓN / BUMBLEBEE
FON CORTIZO – 2024 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
Álex tries to understand his place in the world, his masculinity, his role in caring, the origin of the noises in his centenary grandfather’s dreams. Lucía is blind from birth. She guides Alex.
SHADOWS
RAND BEIRUTY – 2024 / FRANCE-JORDAN
SHADOWS
RAND BEIRUTY – 2024 / FRANCE-JORDAN
At a crowded airport, Ahlam, a 14-year old mother, is running away from Baghdad, the only place she’s ever known. As she fights the shadows lurking around her, she reflects on her journey to reclaim her life.
2006
GABRIELLA CHOUIEFATY – 2024 / FRANCE-LEBANON
2006
GABRIELLA CHOUIEFATY – 2024 / FRANCE-LEBANON
In 2006, as Israeli shells relentlessly rain down on Beirut, Sariah (13), her older sister Nayla and their mother take refuge in the mountains, making sure not to mention the war raging in Lebanon. Sharp tensions between the three women soon resurface, and the rivalry between the two sisters escalates when Nayla’s boyfriend pays her a visit.
PERCEBES
ALEXANDRA RAMIRES, LAURA GONÇALVES – 2024 / PORTUGAL-FRANCE
PERCEBES
ALEXANDRA RAMIRES, LAURA GONÇALVES – 2024 / PORTUGAL-FRANCE
With the sea and the urban Algarve as a background, we follow a complete cycle of the life of a special shellfish called percebes, goose barnacle. From their formation, to the dish, in this journey, we cross different contexts that allow us to better understand this region and those who live there.
EN HJÄLTES DÖD / THE DEATH OF A HERO
KARIN FRANZ KÖRLOF – 2024 / SWEDEN
EN HJÄLTES DÖD / THE DEATH OF A HERO
KARIN FRANZ KÖRLOF – 2024 / SWEDEN
In a small village where people don’t seem to get enough entertainment, a young man is engaged to balance on his head at the top of the church tower and thereafter fall to the ground and die. For doing this he will receive a great deal of money. The people gather enthusiastically at the church to watch the young man perform the task. It’s all over in a couple of seconds. And to everyone’s dismay the young man really dies in the end.
HIPPOCAMPUS
XAIME MIRANDA MÉNDEZ – 2024 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
HIPPOCAMPUS
XAIME MIRANDA MÉNDEZ – 2024 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
Tomás, an old man trapped in the memory of an afternoon with Marta, his platonic love, uses an experimental device to relive that moment and confront his regrets.
TAKO TSUBO
EVA PEDROZA, FANNY SORGO – 2024 / AUSTRIA-GERMANY
TAKO TSUBO
EVA PEDROZA, FANNY SORGO – 2024 / AUSTRIA-GERMANY
Mr. Ham decides to have his heart removed in order to be relieved of his complicated feelings. The doctor assures him that this is no longer a problem at all in this day and age. However, Ham keeps his heart for a while after the removal in order to perhaps understand it better after all. Tako Tsubo is an animated, surrealistic reflection on dealing with feelings in a meritocracy.
ESTE NO ES TIEMPO PARA CARNAVAL / NO TIME FOR CARNAVAL
TADEO PESTAÑA CARO, KEVIN HAVAS – 2025 / ARGENTINA
ESTE NO ES TIEMPO PARA CARNAVAL / NO TIME FOR CARNAVAL
TADEO PESTAÑA CARO, KEVIN HAVAS – 2025 / ARGENTINA
Joaco rides his motorcycle through the neighborhoods of Salta, Argentina selling pirated movies. On the eve of Carnaval, he meets Martina, the daughter of one of his clients, and finds himself entangled in a string of robberies targeting delivery workers in the flee market where he works.
ROSE
ANNIKA MAYER – 2024 / GERMANY
ROSE
ANNIKA MAYER – 2024 / GERMANY
A short film about the invisibility of domestic violence. Whilst watching Super8 films about her seemingly idyllic German family life in the 1960s, the director’s grandmother Rose describes the reality of life with a violent husband.
HOUSEWARMING
LIAM WHITE – 2024 / UNITED KINGDOM
HOUSEWARMING
LIAM WHITE – 2024 / UNITED KINGDOM
Saskia has just moved into her first home, but the dream is tainted by an unexpected arrival.
PATIOS OF LIGHT
FRAN RODRÍGUEZ CASAL – 2024 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
PATIOS OF LIGHT
FRAN RODRÍGUEZ CASAL – 2024 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
Patios de luz is a journey, a diary of life, about rural emigration to the cities. The path from the village to the city neighbourhood is the starting point, from the roads to the Patios of light. Narrated in a poetic language that focuses on nuances, on visual changes, on light, searching for images as intimate and spontaneous as life, the patios de luces become community amphitheatres for those who have not returned.
MOON LAKE
JEANNIE SUI WONDERS – 2024 / UNITED STATES
MOON LAKE
JEANNIE SUI WONDERS – 2024 / UNITED STATES
Set in the mid-2000s suburban Michigan, Tess, a reserved and strange middle schooler, stains the floor at a sleepover as she navigates a new social circle.
O
RÚNAR RÚNARSSON – 2024 / ICELAND-SWEDEN
O
RÚNAR RÚNARSSON – 2024 / ICELAND-SWEDEN
O is a humanistic and poetic story of a fragile man trying to achieve a simple task where his main obstacle is within himself
THE CAR THAT CAME BACK FROM THE SEA
JADWIGA KOWALSKA – 2023 / SWITZERLAND
THE CAR THAT CAME BACK FROM THE SEA
JADWIGA KOWALSKA – 2023 / SWITZERLAND
Full of exuberance and frivolousness, six friends drive to the Polish Baltic coast and back in a small, dented car. During their trip, their car and their country fall apart. Nevertheless, life goes on. Their journey is interfused with memories and snapshots from the past.
HELLO STRANGER
AMÉLIE HARDY – 2024 / CANADA
HELLO STRANGER
AMÉLIE HARDY – 2024 / CANADA
Between loads of laundry at the corner laundromat, Cooper shares the tumultuous story of her gender reassignment journey.
THE EGGREGORES’ THEORY
ANDREA GATOPOULOS – 2024 / ITALY
THE EGGREGORES’ THEORY
ANDREA GATOPOULOS – 2024 / ITALY
He does not remember much from that time. Things have faded, like the color of a painting after too much light. The only thing that bothers him is this music. It keeps popping up… He thinks he forget what it meant. All he knows, for sure, is that he cannot get it out of his head.
CAMPOLIVAR
ALICIA MONCHOLÍ – 2024 / SPAIN
CAMPOLIVAR
ALICIA MONCHOLÍ – 2024 / SPAIN
Reality blends with imagination in a journey back to the director’s childhood where she returns to the last place she shared with her father, the house in Campolivar.
KE WAI HUO DONG / EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY
XU YIDAN, DEAN WEI – 2024 / CHINA
KE WAI HUO DONG / EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY
XU YIDAN, DEAN WEI – 2024 / CHINA
Two high school students, boy and girl, find themselves at the mercy of one of their parents after a nighttime mishap. Over the course of a single night, silence lingers over the characters as they ponder their actions that could have greater social consequences. The mother is forced to make lasting decisions for the two minors, one of which is her own son. As the night progresses, it becomes clear there isn’t something as “the right thing to do”.
1 HIJO & 1 PADRE / 1 SON & 1 FATHER
ANDRÉS RAMÍREZ PULIDO – 2024 / COLOMBIA-FRANCE
1 HIJO & 1 PADRE / 1 SON & 1 FATHER
ANDRÉS RAMÍREZ PULIDO – 2024 / COLOMBIA-FRANCE
Kevin is seen as a troubled boy. To be true, he tends to lose his temper when made fun of. After another incident, he is forced to participate in an all-male behavioral therapy session. Kevin should be going with his father who refuses to come. It’s Kevin’s stepfather, who looks more like his little brother, who is named to go with him.
AMARELA / YELLOW
ANDRÉ HAYATO SAITO – 2024 / BRAZIL
AMARELA / YELLOW
ANDRÉ HAYATO SAITO – 2024 / BRAZIL
São Paulo, July 1998. On the day of the World Cup final between Brazil and France, 14-year-old Erika Oguihara (Melissa Uehara), a Japanese-Brazilian teenager who rejects her family’s traditions, is eager to celebrate a world title for her country. Amidst the tension that builds during the match, Erika experiences a violence that seems invisible and plunges into a painful sea of emotions.
LINNUD LÄINUD / ON WEARY WINGS GO BY
ANU-LAURA TUTTELBERG – 2024 / ESTONIA-LITHUANIA
LINNUD LÄINUD / ON WEARY WINGS GO BY
ANU-LAURA TUTTELBERG – 2024 / ESTONIA-LITHUANIA
A wintry poem about the Nordic nature. The sun moves low and days get shorter. Birds fly South, porcelain animals and insects hide from the freezing wind and snow. Only a small porcelain girl wanders the abandoned landscape with no way out.
DOMINGO FAMILIAR / FAMILY SUNDAY
GERARDO DEL RAZO – 2025 / MEXICO
DOMINGO FAMILIAR / FAMILY SUNDAY
GERARDO DEL RAZO – 2025 / MEXICO
In a forgotten housing unit in Mexico City two scheming scoundrels attempt to extort local merchants, but the fed-up neighbors band together to fight back against their relentless abuses.
FURIA / RAGE
FRAN MORENO BLANCO, SANTI PUJOL AMAT – 2025 / SPAIN
FURIA / RAGE
FRAN MORENO BLANCO, SANTI PUJOL AMAT – 2025 / SPAIN
Eric lives in a juvenile center. He tries to rebuild his relationship with his mother hoping he can live with her again when he turns 18. When she doesn’t show up to visit him, he runs away to her house. There, he discovers she has a new family and has moved on with her life without him.
BAD FOR A MOMENT
DANIEL SOARES – 2024 / PORTUGAL
BAD FOR A MOMENT
DANIEL SOARES – 2024 / PORTUGAL
A team-building event goes wrong and brings the owner of an architect studio face-to-face with the lower-class neighborhood that his company is gentrifying.
EL PRÍNCEP / THE PRINCE
ÀLEX SARDÀ – 2024 / SPAIN
EL PRÍNCEP / THE PRINCE
ÀLEX SARDÀ – 2024 / SPAIN
Today is the premiere day, and Artur, son of a bourgeois family and dancer in a contemporary dance company, acts like the prince in a kingdom tailored to his own image. Everything changes when his father is arrested for corruption in a real estate scandal. From that moment on, Artur must decide between protecting his family by covering up for his father or facing the consequences of losing his privileges.
HIMMEL WIE SEIDE. VOLLER ORANGEN / SKY LIKE SILK. FULL OF ORANGES
BETINA KUNTZSCH – 2024 / GERMANY
HIMMEL WIE SEIDE. VOLLER ORANGEN / SKY LIKE SILK. FULL OF ORANGES
BETINA KUNTZSCH – 2024 / GERMANY
In spring 1990 – between the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification – the first former GDR citizens fly to Mallorca. Mallorca is a place of longing for many East Germans, known to them from their West German relatives’ colourful postcards. Suddenly, anything seems possible.
400 CASSETTES
THELYIA PETRAKI – 2024 / GREECE-GERMANY
400 CASSETTES
THELYIA PETRAKI – 2024 / GREECE-GERMANY
After a lesson about cosmic archaeologists and a water fight in the schoolyard, Elly steals Faye’s soul and Faye gives Elly a rare birthday present. But then, under a sky full of stars, a song from the past will remind the girls that nothing really lasts forever.
EL BANNER / THE BANNER
TOMÁS TERZANO – 2025 / ARGENTINA-SPAIN
EL BANNER / THE BANNER
TOMÁS TERZANO – 2025 / ARGENTINA-SPAIN
The Banner is wrong, the Banner won’t arrive on time and the event cannot start without the Banner. This is what torments Rafael Crivelli, the owner of a small publishing house who needs the Banner to be fixed on time for the event he is about to put on with his new partners. In the frenzy to have the Banner in time and form, he ends up involving his children, perhaps as an excuse to be able to open up to them for the first time.