❗ Trigger/content warning: death, murder, blood, gunshots
Additional screenings: September 15 / 20:00 / Kinoman and September 17 / 19:50 / Kinoman
The International Competition presents a diverse range of short films from various locations and genres. This category embodies our festival's desire to explore new and innovative approaches to filmmaking.
AN ORANGE FROM JAFFA
Director: Mohammed Almughanni
Country: France, Poland
Duration: 26
Mohammed, a young Palestinian, is desperately looking for a taxi to take him through a checkpoint to meet his mother, who is waiting for him on the Israeli side. At the checkpoint, the driver, Farouk, discovers that Mohammed has already failed to cross the border. Trouble begins...
technically_breathing
Director: Markéta Müllerová
Country: Germany
Duration: 3
"technically_breathing" is a 3D animated film that raises the question of whether avatars and artificial intelligence truly breathe or merely create an illusion. The film explores the idea that breathing in times of societal crises can be understood as an act of survival and resistance.
CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE
Director: Sam Manacsa
Country: Philippines
Duration: 17
Mila struggles as she still hasn't been paid by her employer. A love interest becomes a source of comfort through his constant phone calls, but the promise of hope could also lead to tragedy and sad love songs.
BEAUTIFUL MEN
Director: Nicolas Keppens
Country: Belgium, Netherlands, France
Duration: 19
Three bald brothers travel to Istanbul to have a hair transplant. Stuck with one another in a hotel far from home, their insecurities grow faster than their hair.
WILDMEN OF THE GREATER TORONTO AREA
Director: Solmund MacPherson
Country: Canada
Duration: 12
Fed up with the cost of living in Canada's most populous city, the citizens of Toronto begin renouncing their personhood en masse to legally become animals, forming a society of Wildmen in the city's vast ravine network.