The Sleeping Beauty
Mattie Do’s The Sleeping Beauty is a beguiling fairy tale of accursed love that blends fantasy and horror, born of traditional Laotian folklore.
Verdict Shorts
The Boy with White Skin
Labour and mythology come crashing together in The Boy with White Skin, a disquieting short set in the pitch darkness of a Senegalese gold mine.
perfectly a strangeness
The short experimental documentary ‘perfectly a strangeness’ pairs the mundane with the majestic in an equine odyssey to the stars.
How to Shoot a Ghost
Mortality is on the mind in Charlie Kaufman’s contemplative and illusory short, How to Shoot a Ghost – an enveloping, chimeric memento mori.
The Orchards
Antoine Chapon repurposes eerie architectural animations in ‘The Orchards,’ a paean to a lost Damascus community that attempts to resist its eradication by a vindictive regime.
I Believe the Portrait Saved Me
The documentary vignette ‘I Believe the Portrait Saved Me’ uses a deeply personal story to explore the power of creativity and evoke the teetering knife edge of survival.
Wish You Were Ear
Mirjana Balogh’s affirming animation, Wish You Were Ear, finds solace in a dystopian future where ending a relationship requires the physical swapping of a body part.
a river holds a perfect memory
Tying together disparate locations in Northern England and Jamaica, Hope Strickland’s evocative boat ride, ‘a river holds a perfect memory,’ explores the interrelations between labour, memory and rivers.
Memory Is an Animal, It Barks with Many Mouths
Ostensibly about the preservation of an ancient language, Eva Giolo’s essay film ‘Memory Is an Animal, It Barks with Many Mouths’ combines linguistics with landscape and myth to captivating effect.
Common Pear
Traditional fruit cultivation becomes a source of archival fascination in Common Pear, a sci-fi documentary hybrid set amidst environmental collapse.
Empty Rider
The third work in Lawrence Lek’s trilogy on disobedient driverless cars, Empty Rider explores autonomy and responsibility through a futuristic AI show trial.
Teta (Grandmother)
A mother and her young son’s relationship is pushed to the limit in Teta, an unnerving psychological horror with disquieting, supernatural overtones.
Man Number 4
How we consume images and what it means to be a distant onlooker lie at the heart of Miranda Pennell’s sobering, analytical short, Man Number 4.
Archipelago of Earthen Bones – To Bunya
Malena Szlam uses in-camera editing to craft Archipelago of Earthen Bones – To Bunya, an evocative 16mm exploration of Australia’s vast central eastern ranges and their deep geological time.
Manual for a Divorce
Peter Ghesquiere channels Wes Anderson in Manual for a Divorce, a mannered short comedy about a couple who are separated when their children get a divorce.
Alone Together
A checkpoint stop en route to Tehran leads to a young boy being held for drug possession. A moral quandary ensues in the emotive short, Alone Together.
Nostalgia of a (Still) Alive Heart
Two young children are left to find their own way when their father commits suicide in Diego Gaxiola’s poignant magical realist short, Nostalgia of a (Still) Alive Heart.
Almost Certainly False
Coming of age is tough in Almost Certainly False, a deft exploration of identity and duty in the life of a young Syrian immigrant dreaming of leaving Istanbul for Europe.
Three Keenings
Three Keenings is a darkly comic character portrait depicts an actor presenting a facsimile of grief that is a thin veneer over the real thing waiting to erupt.
The Poison Cat
A closed, patriarchal community begins to transform as the cries of a legendary forest beast foreshadow social revolution in the spirited short, The Poison Cat.
The Eggregores Theory
The surrealism of images created by artificial intelligence evokes the unreliability of memory and elusive nature of a dystopian plague in the sci-fi short, ‘The Eggregores Theory’.
On the Way
A father and son heading home from football practice face the realities of bureaucracy and the lure of migration in Samir Karahoda’s finely tuned short, On the Way.
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent
A passenger train witnesses an act of ethnic cleansing in ‘The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent’, a well-drawn portrait of the wary silence of complicity that allows evil to triumph. Winner of the Palme D’Or – Short Film at Cannes.
Like a Sick Yellow
Like a Sick Yellow is a fragmentary portrait of place that blurs fact with fiction to create an elusive and unnerving meditation on memory and the Kosovan war.
looking she said I forget
A young woman acclimatises to the rhythms of a new city while reflecting on those of her lifestyle in looking she said I forget, the heady short from Naomi Pacifique.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Kevin Jerome Everson’s latest short – Practice, Practice, Practice – is yet another perfectly calibrated examination of the aspects of African-American labour that packs a powerful punch.
Pirates of the Mediterranean
The historical documentary Pirates of the Mediterranean combines an operation to uncover a 16th century shipwreck with re-enactment and talking heads to explore an overlooked element of Europe’s past.
Beautiful Lie
A father attempts to create some kind of life and legacy for his blind son in this tender but bittersweet Maltese drama, Beautiful Lie.
Empathfridges
In the slantwise ethnographic documentary ‘Empathfridges’, Rakel Jonsdottir explores the concept of shared fridges in Iceland to create microcosmic portraits of place and community.
If I die, will I go home?
The experimental short If I die, will I go home? unnervingly explores the psyche of a young man wrestling with how to survive as an adult when bound by the long grip of childhood trauma.
for here am i sitting in a tin can far above the world
Crypto-currencies and cryogenics become intertwined in Gala Hernandez Lopez’s illusory dual-screen collage which ruminates on humanity’s speculative relationship with the future, for here am i sitting in a tin can far above the world.
That’s All from Me
A filmmaker explores her struggles with motherhood and artistic stimulus through a correspondence and a short film about birdwatching in That’s All from Me, a deft epistolary short.
Tako Tsubo
A man has his heart removed in an attempt to lessen his existential anguish in Fanny Sorgo and Eva Pedroza’s expressive, lingering animation, Tako Tsubo.
In Praise of Slowness
The outmoded bleach sellers of Tangier offer a window to a simpler time and a resistance against rampant growth in Hicham Gardaf’s tranquil documentary, In Praise of Slowness.
The Moon Also Rises
An elderly couple retreats from the outside world in preparation for the launch of three artificial moons in the strange and meditative experimental documentary, The Moon Also Rises.
Towards the Sun, Far from the Center
Santiago, Chile is both brought into focus and dreamily abstracted in Towards the Sun, Far from the Centre, a languid city symphony featuring a queer couple looking for a space in which they can express themselves.
Remains of the Hot Day
A wonderfully observed sketch of a family lunch in late-1990s China, Remains of the Hot Day not only captures period mood but is compiled from glimpses of myriad miniature dramas.
Bye Bye Turtle
A young girl avoiding her home and a woman returning to hers after a long absence form a brief but profound bond in Selin Oksuzoglu sparkling short, Bye Bye Turtle.
Workers’ Wings
Ilir Hasanaj’s deeply empathetic documentary ‘Workers’ Wings’, is centred on manual labourers who have suffered workplace injuries, is a tender and intimate marvel.
Daphne was a torso ending in leaves
In the spritely and tactile essayistic ode to a heroine of Greek myth Daphne was a torso ending in leaves, Catriona Gallagher reflects on the legacy of an ancient arboreal transformation.
History Is Written at Night
‘History Is Written at Night’ is an unusual portrait of the blackouts that have plagued Cuba over the past few years and an exquisite exercise in atmosphere.
14 Paintings
Just over a dozen artworks are observed in situ in 14 Paintings, a patient but cumulatively fascinating cross-section portrait of contemporary China.
Between Delicate and Violent
Sirin Bahar Demirel’s stimulating bricolage short, Between Delicate and Violent, combines archival imagery with animation to examine how pictures tell stories and whether they can be mined for truth.
I Would Like to Rage
Chloe Galibert-Laine’s latest video essay, I Would Like to Rage, reflects on the place of rage online and through this lens explores the blurred lines between authenticity and performativity
An Asian Ghost Story
Mass wig exportation becomes the lens through which the fascinating, spectral doc An Asian Ghost Story explores Hong Kong’s late 20th-century modernisation and position between East and West.
Compound Eyes of Tropical
One of the traditional fables of Sang Kancil, the wily mouse-deer, is brought exquisitely to life in Zhang Xu Zhan’s electrifying, otherworldly animation, Compound Eyes of Tropical
Lumene: Privatisation
In the complex and thought-provoking essay film, Lumene: Privatisation, David Shongo reflects on the commodification of cultural memory and the lasting impacts of insidious colonial impositions.
Three Windows on South West
An ostensibly simplistic documentary about a flat in Kyiv, Three Windows on South West uses incidental memories to paint a fleeting collective portrait of another time.
We Are the Hollow Men
Rati Oneli’s phlegmatic drama, We Are the Hollow Men, depicts the difficult relationship between an estranged father and son when the latter returns home after his mother’s death.
Amma ki Katha (My Amma’s Tale)
History, folklore, and contemporary realities intertwine in Amma ki Katha, Nehal Vyas’ essayistic meditation on national aspiration and how stories become enmeshed in state oppression.
Single Light
A young woman must deal with the physical and psychological bruises of a sexual assault in Shaylee Atary’s powerful dramatic short, Single Light.
Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: “Phony Wars”
Godard reaches from beyond with one final film, a coarse and compelling act of montage, an expressive audiovisual treatment for a never-to-be-made made feature, Phony Wars.
Our Males and Females
A mother and father are confronted with an agonising dilemma as they attempt to prepare the body of their young transgender child for burial in Ahmad Alyaseer’s ‘Our Males and Females’.
Dream Maker
A man uses virtual reality to experience and retouch the memory of his deceased daughter in this poignant, thought-provoking Iranian sci-fi, Dream Maker.
Wander to Wonder
The miniature beings that starred in an 80s television show slowly unravel in Wander to Wonder, a surreal animation that riffs on an enchanting children’s story trope.
We Should All Be Futurists
Silent film footage is repurposed in We Should All Be Futurists, a deliciously comic reimagining of Marinetti’s man-machine hybrid as a novel – intimate – cure for female hysteria.
Sentimental Stories
A largely deserted port plays host to subtle drama unraveling at a glacially pace in Xandra Popescu’s strangely beguiling study in stasis, Sentimental Stories.
In the Shadow of the Cypress
Unspoken traumas are made manifest in Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi’s beautifully drawn and profoundly moving animated allegory, In the Shadow of the Cypress.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Wes Anderson’s second Roald Dahl adaptation packs a feature’s worth of deadpan humor and aggressive visual style into just 37 minutes.
Fran and Verka; or A Usual Day in an Abandoned Village
The long fingers of the Kosovo War reach into the present in Sovran Nrecaj’s patient and stark documentary about Fran and Verka’s isolated life in an abandoned village.
From the Corner of My Eyes
Domonkos Erhardt’s student short ‘From the Corner of My Eyes’ uses the malleability of the animated image to great effect to capture a miniature moment of connection.
Lost Children
With ‘Lost Children’ Lola Cambourieu and Yann Berlier have created an aching, poignant and keenly observed depiction of a dislocated father-daughter relationship, premiered in Sarajevo International Film Festival,
Self-Portrait Along the Borderline
The personal and the political entangle in Self-Portrait Along the Borderline, Anna Dziapshipa’s excellent essay doc about Georgian-Abkhazian relations through the lens of her own family history. It is competing in Sarajevo International Film Festival
CineVerdict: Mátalos a todos
Mátalos a todos de Sebastian Molina Ruiz combina la estética grunge en video con elementos epistolares para explorar el sentimiento adolescente de aislamiento .
Kill ‘Em All
A tentative friendship blossoms through video correspondence in ‘Kill ‘Em All’, a deftly observed docudrama filled with youthful uncertainty and poignant loneliness.
iNTELLIGENCE
A man learns of his own imminent death in iNTELLIGENCE, a strikingly graphic meditation on a curtailed life and the allure of immortality.
Night Shift
The beguiling Night Shift follows two individuals as they meander around venerated institutions after dark, crafting an entrancing portrait of liminal existences.
A Tortoise’s Year of Fate
A factory worker wrestles with a dispiriting future in this short about a fortune-telling tortoise and a desire for self-determination.
Shorts That Impressed Us at KVIFF 57
From heart-breaking performances to queasy satire, from Pedro Costa to Christopher Lee, there was something for everyone in this year’s KVIFF shorts.
Sensitive Content
Upending the online practice of blurring sensitive content, Narges Kalhor’s short documentary celebrates those bravely sharing uncensored images of Iran’s recent protests.
Heart of an Astronaut
This documentary about astronauts and the doctor that administers to them finds quiet profundity within the mechanics of interplanetary bodies.
Ardent Other
Alice Brygo’s arresting film is an experiential recreation of the crowds massing around the burning Notre-Dame in 2019 and myriad responses to the catastrophic events.
Daughter and Son
Sachiko and Ming share an apartment and predilection for role-play in Cheng Yu’s enigmatic and intriguing exploration of one relationship through the prism of many.
Les Chenilles
Two Levantine immigrants working in a Lyon café bond in this meditation on friendship and the long fingers of history which claimed the Berlinale Shorts top prize.
Dipped in Black
This deeply personal documentary follows an Australian Aboriginal man as he escapes the chokehold of the big city to reconnect with Country.
A Kind of Testament
This strange and engrossing short blends a surreal and slippery story about a bizarre online relationship with Stephen Vuillemin’s glorious animation.
Terra Mater – Mother Land
Set amidst a landscape of mountainous detritus, Kantarama Gahigiri’s short is an abstract but strikingly powerful rejoinder against the exploitation of Africa.
Waking Up in Silence
This tenderly moving documentary observes a group of Ukrainian children adapting to their new lives, after having been re-homed in former military barracks in Germany.
Jill, Uncredited
This thoughtful compilation film draws our gaze to something unregistered across decades of British cinema and television – the face of a particular extra, Jill Goldston.
Last Things
The nature and potential of non-human evolution are explored to disquieting effect in Deborah Stratman’s essayistic blend of science fact and science fiction.
Human Nature
A couple reflect on a failed pregnancy in the midst of the pandemic in Monica Lima’s tactile and delicate drama about the desire to nurture and propagate.
Prosinecki
An ageing footballer reflects on his career in this layered rumination on the nature of the beautiful game adapted from the filmmaker’s own short story.
Night and Fear
Sound and images captured during several years of documentary making form the basis for this haunting essayistic meditation on fear and its effects.
Uncanny Me
As we stand on the edge of increasing digital frontiers, Katharina Pethke’s thought-provoking film explores the mechanics and implications of creating a virtual doppelganger.
Mother Earth’s Inner Organs
Ana Bravo-Perez searches for the demons released by the extraction of fossil fuels from her native Colombia in this disquieting hybrid documentary.
Devil’s Peak
Simon Liu utilises his familiar febrile aesthetic as a way to explore and represent Hong Kong’s tumultuous recent history, to deeply disquieting effect.
Motorrodillo
This observational documentary follows the travails of a female driver who is part a grass-roots public transit system connecting the villages of northern Colombia.
The Mechanics of Fluids
Gala Hernandez Lopez’s essay film addresses the incel phenomena from a position of fascination and empathy, seeking to understand the pain of isolation in a connected world.International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film
Make or Break
This atmospheric animated documentary uses collage and fleeting rotoscoped drawings to convey the brutality and dislocating effect of state care in the GDR.
On Taphonomy
The life and work of German palaeontologist Johannes Weigelt is itself placed under the microscope in this inventive and unexpectedly charged miniature portrait.
The Sound of Dreaming
Lucid dreaming and entangled destinies give an otherworldly aspect to Kalani Gacon’s intoxicating and bittersweet tale of romantic longing in Kathmandu.
Radio Silence
A silly joke on a quiet weekend away becomes a painful indicator of impending doom in this low-key Norwegian break-up drama.
Look at Me
Javier Bardem and Chris Rock star in this febrile melodrama, directed by Sally Potter, about an explosive moment in a relationship.
Christopher at Sea
Inspired by Schubert’s song cycle Die schone Mullerin, Christopher at Sea is a dizzying animated odyssey into solitude and obsessive, unrequited desire.
My Girl Friend
A harmless ruse to enable some teenage fumbling upsets the equilibrium of a relationship in Kawthar Younis’ pointed chamber piece.
Snow in September
A teenage boy’s worldview is unsettled by a confusing encounter with an older woman in this riveting Mongolian coming-of-age drama.
August Sky
This deft and low-key drama uses fires raging in the Amazon to explore how a young woman is drawn to religion in search of some form of stability.
North Pole
A teenage girl’s sense of isolation is writ large across the screen in this frosty Macedonian coming-of-age short that is warmed by a compelling lead performance.
The Baldwin Archives
A 1963 BBC interview with James Baldwin, and conducted by Peter Duval Smith, is recreated in this polished and energising narrative short.
5pm Seaside
Two men share in intimate and intense moment on a deserted shoreline in this short drama about violence, emancipation, and the fine lines between the two.
The Water Murmurs
Story Chen’s Palme D’Or-winning short is a mesmerising journey through memory and melancholia as a woman takes a farewell tour of her hometown.
That’s How The Summer Ended
Atmosphere is everything in this ambiguous, slightly absurd short that leaves a great deal left unsaid, but perfects a lingering sense of melancholy.
Liturgy of Anti-tank Obstacles
This deceptively simple documentary explores the nature of creation by juxtaposing the work of Ukrainian sculptors who’ve turned their hands to the war effort.
Bachelorette Party
The celebration of a forthcoming marriage is depicted with poignancy and subtlety in Lola Cambourieu and Yann Berlier’s intimate short.
Catcave Hysteria
The women’s toilet in a nightclub becomes the site of miniature disasters and minor catastrophes in Angelika Abramovitch’s multi-stranded and surprisingly affecting short.
Strasbourg 1518
Jonathan Glazer’s lockdown short embraces the urge to dance, re-framing a 16th century madness into an infectious ode to perseverance in the pandemic era.
Ice Merchants
A father and son make daily parachute jumps from their cliffside home to sell ice in João Gonzalez’s gripping and poignant animation.
Night Light
A teenager cares for her younger siblings in this delicate portrait of familial love and the desire to hold on to a semblance of childhood.
The Spiral
María Silvia Esteve’s new short is a bombastic and overwhelming voyage of colour and sound that conveys the psychological sensation of spiraling hypochondria.
Liquid Bread
An offbeat comedy about family dysfunction ultimately becomes a touching examination of how we deal with scars left on us by our histories.
On Xerxes’ Throne
The outlawing of physical contact creates a cauldron of unexpressed sensuality for the burnished and browbeaten shipyard workers of Evi Kalogiropoulou’s eerie dystopian short.
Will You Look At Me
Shuli Huang’s intensely personal and moving diary film is like a heart-wrenching exploration of – and possibly coda to – his relationship with his mother.
When There Is No More Music To Write, and other Roman Stories
Éric Baudelaire riffs on the music and musical sensibility of Alvin Curran in this absorbing archival documentary about the revolutionary fervour of mid-century Rome.
Congress of Idling Persons
In this collaborative rumination on the nature and limits of political protest, Bassem Saad weaves together performance, found footage, and on-screen text with playful results.
Mangrove School
Filipa César and Sónia Vaz Borges explore the decolonising power of education in this tale of rebellious scholarship in the tangle of Guinea-Bissau’s mangrove swamps.
Study of a Fight
A simple premise yields increasingly complex results in Marie Suul Brobakke’s dissection of a romantic relationship between two actors rehearsing a scene.
It’s Raining Frogs Outside
Apocalypse anxiety, discomfort in the childhood home, and the effects of enforced isolation make for a heady brew in Maria Estela Paiso’s multimedia fever dream.
North Terminal
A new documentary from Lucrecia Martel explores communal creativity and expressive performance by bringing together marginalised artists in the north of Argentina.
Memoir of a Veering Storm
This grainy, tender, and contemplative film by Sofia Georgovassili approaches a potentially traumatic coming-of-age drama through a fable-like, quotidian lens.
Memories of the Eastern Front
The truth lies in the spaces between recorded history in Radu Jude and Adrian Cioflânc?’s austere and through-provoking silent documentary.
Dragon Tooth
Through colourful, chemically contaminated found footage, Rafael Castanheira Parrode evocatively excavates the trauma of the 1987 radioactivity disaster in Goiânia, Brazil.
Dirndlschuld
Super 8 footage of an idyllic holiday destination provides the serene surface for Wilbirg Brainin-Donnenberg’s probe into the darker elements of history both political and personal.
Agrilogistics
Gerard Ortín Castellví’s film about the mechanised standardisation of plant products in an industrial greenhouse is both hypnotic and unsettling; meticulous documentary and dreamlike fantasy.
Blue Has No Dimensions
Ágata de Pinho impresses both in front of and behind the camera in this visceral drama about a woman who believes she will disappear on her 28th birthday.
Murmurs of the Jungle
Our prehistoric relationship to the forest is atmospherically invoked in this documentary about a small Indian village and the tales its inhabitants tell of the whispering trees.
Tugging Diary
Yan Wai Yin’s diaristic documentary uses the interplay of posters and graffiti on a local footbridge to explore and evoke intense social unrest in Hong Kong.
Nosferasta: First Bite
A captivating, shapeshifting excavation of the vampirism of Christopher Columbus and the colonial project filtered through the weed-fuelled mythology of artist and singer, Oba.
Songs for Dying
Korakrit Arunanondchai’s deeply moving film combines elements of mysticism, ecology, and politics to form some kind of understanding in the face of painful personal loss.
The Making of Crime Scenes
Hsu Che-yu’s examination of a political assassination combines digital and physical reconstruction techniques to understand the life of a mobster, assassin, and film producer.
Becoming Male in the Middle Ages
Pedro Neves Marques follows 2019’s The Bite with another sci-fi-infused relationship story in this thought-provoking meditation on traditional gender roles and the nuclear family.
Egúngún (Masquerade)
Olive Nwosu’s delicate drama explores the difficulty of confronting complex notions of identity while also traversing a tender story of first love lost.
Listen to the Beat of Our Images
Siblings Audrey and Maxime Jean-Baptiste mine the archive to visualise the transformation of 1960s French Guiana by a new space centre in this poetic documentary.
The Headhunter’s Daughter
A young woman navigates the Cordilleran highlands to seek fame in the big city in Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan’s mysterious, Western-tinged drama.
Love Stories on the Move
Ilinca H?rnu? gives a captivating performance in Carina Gabriela Da?oveanu’s restrained but perceptive drama about a taxi driver longing for romance amidst a faltering marriage.
