Lake County Film Festival Unveils Largest Short Films Program in Festival History
The Lake County Film Festival proudly announces the short films lineup for the 2026 festival, presenting an ambitious and wide-ranging selection of 128 short films from around the world. The program includes 81 live-action narrative shorts, 23 animated shorts, 18 documentary shorts, and 6 music videos, marking the most expansive short films showcase in festival history and underscoring LCFF’s ongoing commitment to bold storytelling, emerging voices, and filmmaker discovery.
This year’s shorts program features multiple World Premieres, including Permanent Residence, Quiet Tonight, No Clean Hammer, Ripple, Paper Swans, and The Super, among others. These premieres sit alongside acclaimed selections from filmmakers with deep ties to LCFF, as well as artists whose work has screened at prestigious festivals internationally.
Festival alumni return in force this year. P. Patrick Hogan brings the inventive sci-fi horror short Blindsided, following his LCFF-screened feature Pope Dreams and earlier shorts Virtually, Killing Time, and Quiet! Mom’s Working! Parker Croft returns with two films, Hell and The Liars of Black Mountain, after previously screening As Easy As Closing Your Eyes. Thomas Nicol debuts the World Premiere of Quiet Tonight, following his 2024 LCFF short The Venus Gambit. John Klein & Steve Kniss present The Solution, reuniting after their 2024 feature Never Not Yours; Klein has also screened Static Space and the 2011 feature Happily After at the festival. Bonnie Discepolo returns with Neo Dome, following her earlier LCFF selection GraceLand. Shaina Feinberg brings We Should Eat, following her 2022 shorts I’m Not Home Yet and My Mom’s Eggplant Sauce. Documentary filmmaker Jeffrey Hill returns with Clack Mountain Clay, nearly two decades after screening The Assembler at LCFF in 2006, while Chicago-based filmmaker Olivia Moon presents Draft Paper, following her 2022 selection Kiss ’n’ Ride.
This year’s shorts lineup also features an impressive roster of on-screen talent. Magan’s Fare stars Barkhad Abdi, Academy Award–nominated for his breakout role in Captain Phillips. Genre short Magical Meat features an appearance by screen icon Danny Trejo, while the comedy Tight & Nerdy showcases the unmistakable presence of *“Weird Al” Yankovic. The documentary Age of Audio includes interviews with influential voices from across comedy, podcasting, and pop culture, including Marc Maron, Ira Glass, Fred Armisen, and Kevin Smith, further underscoring the breadth and cultural reach of this year’s program.
The short films are presented across a dynamic slate of programs curated by form, genre, community, and theme. Audiences can explore blocks dedicated to Animation and Documentary, genre-focused programs such as Comedy, Science Fiction, and Thriller/Horror, and detail-driven showcases including Student Shorts and Support Local, highlighting filmmakers from Chicago, Milwaukee, and the communities in between.
The festival’s thematic programming remains a defining feature of the shorts lineup. Highlights include Is This Therapy?, OMG! WTF!, and four installments of the festival’s Identities series, with programs centered on Asian-American, Jewish American, and African-American experiences, including two programs, one narrative, one documentary, under the banner The Souls of Black Folk. Together, these curated blocks explore mental health, cultural inheritance, faith, belonging, and identity through a wide range of cinematic styles and perspectives.
The 2026 Lake County Film Festival runs March 12–23, 2026, with screenings at The College of Lake County in Grayslake, The Gorton Center in Lake Forest, and, for the first time, The Antioch Theater in Antioch.
From intimate character studies and inventive comedies to experimental animation, social-issue documentaries, boundary-pushing genre films, and music videos, the 2026 Lake County Film Festival short films program offers audiences an unparalleled opportunity to experience the vitality and range of contemporary short-form cinema.
Full lineup details and scheduling information can be found at
www.lakecountyfilmfestival.org
Individual tickets are $10, with discounted day, weekend, and full-festival badges available. Festival badges include meals, unlimited popcorn, and meet-and-greet breakfasts for staff, filmmakers, VIPs, and badge holders.
The complete short films lineup appears below.
Live Action Narrative Short Films
003
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2025 • 3 Minutes
Director: Daniel Chamorro
A bell rings. An unexpected visit…
11 Blocks To Go: The Bet
Narrative • Comedy/Episodic • USA • 2024 • 11 Minutes
Director: Nathaniel P. Claridad
Samantha, a free-spirited hopeless romantic, discovers her 30-something-year-old BFF Drew, a gay highfunctioning drug-addled sex addict, is hosting an orgy in lieu of honoring his personal commitments.
A Mary Can Dream
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 21 Minutes
Director: Shin-Fei Chen
A Taiwanese mother and her Americanized daughter collide with their conflicting dreams.
A Moonlit Night
Narrative • China • USA • 2025 • 19 Minutes
Director: Jing Wen
In a secluded temple where moonlight is gathered through ritual practice, a lay Buddhist cultivator breaks an unspoken rule by refusing to share her gift. As her connection to the moonlight fades, she wanders through spaces of devotion and nature, until an act of quiet release alters the balance between loss, faith, and renewal.
Ad/Break
Narrative • Horror/Comedy • USA • 2025 • 17 Minutes
Director: Walter Banasiak
The same woman appears in multiple advertisements, pitching wildly different products from different eras. But something’s amiss about these chipper promotions that soon compound into a threatening chase through surreal spaces.
An Afternoon Punch-Up
Narrative • Comedy • Canada • 2023 • 15 Minutes
Director: Garance Chagnon-Grégoire
It’s summer of 2002, and moving day is fast approaching for the Bouchard-Beauregard family. While Sophie, a devoted wife and mother, struggles to control the chaos in the house, a televised boxing match creates pandemonium within the already dysfunctional family.
Anesthesia
Narrative • Science-Fiction/Thriller • USA • 2025 • 13 Minutes
Director: Jeff Osborne
A business executive meets his childhood mother in an anesthesia app during open-heart surgery, but is she there to help him?
Babka
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2025 • 17 Minutes
Director: Serena Dykman
In the heart of Hasidic Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a newly blind Jewish Orthodox baker forms an unlikely friendship with a Queer Catholic Latino guide dog trainer, embarking on an eye-opening journey to overcome personal and cultural barriers in his quest to reopen his beloved bakery.
Baby Tooth
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2025 • 5 Minutes
Director: Olivia Accardo
A young woman puts out an advertisement for two things: to sell her Grandad’s boat, and for someone to pull out her baby tooth.
Bag Ladies
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2025 • 12 Minutes
Director: Harry Syed
A vintage influencer’s obsession with a rare handbag leads to a clash with a chic fashionista. As admiration turns into rivalry, a playful trade takes an unexpected turn in this witty tale of style, status, and ambition.
The Bathtub
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2021 • 19 Minutes
Director: Harry Syed
Ramon Riera is taking a well-deserved bath when his cell phone suddenly rings. On the other side of the line is Clara, a girl who insistently tries to sell him life insurance.
Bible Camp
Narrative • Comedy/Drama • USA • 2025 • 13 Minutes
Director: Philip DeRise
Based on a true immigrant story, young Koreans assimilate to baseball, burnt hot dogs and hostility at a discount daycare.
Big Steps
Narrative • Comedy/Drama/Fantasy • USA • 2025 • 13 Minutes
Director: Oliver William Staton
A disillusioned office worker endures a lonely and mundane existence until he starts seeing visions of Bigfoot. He tries to rid himself of these hallucinations, until he realizes that Bigfoot might actually be a sign of something missing from his life.
Blindsided
Narrative • Horror • USA • 2025 • 8 Minutes
Director: P. Patrick Hogan
A blind schoolteacher struggles to survive through a nightmarish night when an alien spaceship crashes and unleashes a monstrous predator. This unique horror short film features an all low-vision cast and places the audience in the POV of a blind protagonist who is only able to hear what happens around her.
Catalogue Of Noses
Narrative • Comedy/Musical • USA • 2025 • 12 Minutes
Director: Josie Andrews
Catalogue Of Noses tells the story of 16-year-old Jewish actor Emily who faces off with her mother and her Jewish plastic surgeon on the day of her scheduled rhinoplasty. Emily must navigate this emotional decision and learn certain unsettling truths about the consequences of assimilation. Inspired by real events.
Clean Girl
Narrative • Comedy/Horror/Thriller • USA • 2025 • 14 Minutes
Director: Josie Andrews
A TikTok-obsessed woman copes with a recent breakup, all the while something’s lurking under her floorboards…
Clementine
Narrative • Comedy/Science-Fiction • USA • 2025 • 14 Minutes
Director: Mike Doyle
A Nordic woman from the 1800s appears at the door of a man in modern day Brooklyn, they don’t hit it off.
Clutter
Narrative • Drama • United Kingdom • 2025 • 15 Minutes
Director: James Card
Jean has a no nonsense attitude to both her cleaning job and her affluent clientele. But faced with the aftermath of a grieving drag queen’s night of hedonism, she is forced to confront the pain of her own loss, and the repercussions of a deep rooted prejudice.
Cockroach
Narrative • Dark Comedy • USA • 2025 • 9 Minutes
Director: Heather Older
We spend a long day with Juliette as she navigates what would have been the two-year anniversary with her girlfriend. She tries to convince herself she can be attracted to men but instead can’t look past objectifying them. Her delirium is finally relieved (sort of) by an unexpected stranger. Like cockroaches, love always finds a way to survive against the odds.
Contente 🙂
Narrative • Drama/Comedy • Brazil • 2025 • 19 Minutes
Director: Ale Peralta
After years of a tumultuous professional and loving relationship, children’s music duo Amanda (Tulip) and Pedro (Sunflower) will perform together for the last time.
Counterparts
Narrative • Action • Hong Kong • 2025 • 3 Minutes
Director: Ale Peralta
A meticulous thief and a chaotic opportunist collide during a late-night office heist
Dating Mark Silcox
Narrative • Drama • United Kingdom • 2025 • 12 Minutes
Director: Joe Lycett
Unable to get a second date, Mark Silcox attempts to find love by learning to be funny. But could his joking go too far?
Dirty Change
Narrative • Drama/Action • Hungary • 2025 • 23 Minutes
Director: Tibor Tasi
Richie must repay a crippling loan shark debt, inherited from his father, by fighting in illegal bouts. Just one final match stands between him and closing the past once and for all to start a new life with his girlfriend. But when he finds himself in the crosshairs of rival gangs, Ricsi is forced to make life-altering decisions.
Don’t Watch This
Narrative • Drama/Science-Fiction • USA • 2025 • 15 Minutes
Director: Daniel Pineros
A woman slowly realizes she’s a character in a movie. As she spirals in terror, everyone around her dismisses her as delusional-unaware that she’s the only one who knows we are watching.
Dryland
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 9 Minutes
Director: Marissa Vonn
Dennie, a swim coach grappling with PTSD and struggling to connect with her team, must overcome her biggest trigger as the team dives into their crucial first meet of the season.
Final Frame
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 9 Minutes
Director: Andrew + Adrian Nuño
Carlos is quickly trying to finish editing a film when he gets a call from a friend urging him to get to the hospital where his partner, Ben, is about to have a critical surgery. Carlos hesitates because he and Ben need the money from this job to keep them afloat financially. As the countdowns between the project deadline and Ben’s surgery collide, Carlos finds himself torn between turning in the film and being there for his partner.
Fractures
Narrative • Drama • Canada • 2025 • 9 Minutes
Director: Roman Gubin
Fractures follows a father as he struggles to balance the needs of his young daughter, Sophie, while navigating the tension between his new partner and his late wife’s mother. Set during Sophie’s 7th birthday, the film explores themes of unresolved grief and family conflict, exposing the emotional cracks that threaten to tear them apart.
Give Me One Second
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 1 Minute
Director: Ricardo Serrano
On a quiet shoreline, a woman’s evening calm is interrupted by the insistent call of her phone. In a fleeting pause between connection and silence, she makes a choice that could change everything.
Horse
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 6 Minute
Director: Akkhiel Nambbiar
The rules are simple, the stakes are not. Tariq and Allen play a game of HORSE.
How To Sell Your Soul
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2024 • 10 Minute
Director: Joseph Ford
When unsuspecting commercial realtor Kelvin Bertley takes a meeting with the devil, he finds himself trapped in a negotiation for his entire reality.
Hāfu
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 16 Minute
Director: Josh Wolff
When an American bride-to-be spends the day reuniting with her Japanese grandmother, she discovers through the dance of communication that she is more connected to her heritage than she realized.
I Hate Helen
Narrative • Drama • United Kingdom • 2025 • 7 Minute
Director: Katie Lambert
I hate Helen. I hate the way her fat ass jiggles when she’s excited. I hate the way she looks at the boys with gooey sex eyes. I hate her wet spitty mouth. She is a slag and I hate her.
I’m Sorry (In The Future)
Narrative • Comedy/Drama • Canada • 2025 • 11 Minute
Director: Ben Louis Nicholas
Upon learning he’s to be a father, Brent types a letter to his future child detailing how pain, no matter how insignificant, will be part of life. A kaleidoscope of comedic, and poignant, violence ensues.
Irrelevant
Narrative • Comedy • Spain • 2025 • 4 Minute
Director: Joel Munu
Julián Expósito’s life lacks the extraordinary. The days go by with indifference, submerged in apathy, and nothing is a stimulus any more, not even this short film.
Kuchar (The Itch)
Narrative • Comedy/Drama • India • 2025 • 20 Minute
Director: Vaidaangi Sharma
After the whirl of a washing machine unexpectedly introduces her to new sensations, teenage Chanda struggles to conceal her new discovery within the household. Meanwhile, her strict and composed mother is keeping secrets of her own.
Learners
Narrative • Drama • United Kingdom • 2025 • 20 Minute
Director: Paul Testar
When a cantankerous widower reluctantly agrees to teach his son’s unemployed girlfriend to drive, an unlikely friendship is sparked.
The Liars Of Black Mountain
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 13 Minute
Director: Parker Croft
When a couple runs over a stranger’s dog, they compete for the moral high ground at any cost.
Living With Maria
Narrative • Drama • Canada • 2025 • 10 Minute
Director: John Barnard
A newly emigrated Latina woman struggles with her loss of culture, her inability to work in a new country and her husband’s lack of empathy.
Cleverly, she manages to transport him into an alternate dimension, wherein they both inhabit a 1950s film from the Mexican golden age of cinema.
Loss
Narrative • Drama • Israel • 2025 • 14 Minute
Director: Sivan Levy Zakin
Nine-year-old Goni, carries the weight of her wounds into the boundless red desert. Guided by her brother, she enters a timeless space where grief and strength intertwine in haunting silence.
Lost & Found
Narrative • Drama/Comedy • Poland • 2025 • 14 Minute
Director: Wiktoria Kwoka
A teenage burglar breaks into the home of an elderly man, not expecting to find him there. To her surprise, she interrupts the man in the middle of a suicide attempt. Startled by her presence, the man makes her an offer – he will let her go free if she helps him finish what he started.
Magan’s Fare
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 26 Minute
Director: Chris Knoblock & Dana White
Magan (Barkhad Abdi), a pragmatic ride-share driver from Somalia, takes Jorani, an older woman from Cambodia with mild dementia back to her nursing home. The facility, though, has given up her bed and they refuse to accept her back. Thus begins an overland odyssey where Magan must figure out what to do with Jorani & decide how far he will go to help her.
Magical Meat
Narrative • Horror/Mystery/Comedy • USA • 2025 • 13 Minute
Director: Eric Boadella
Asahi suffers from panophobia; an excessive fear of absolute everything. His unfortunate disorder is so debilitating that his wife and daughter have no choice but to seek out Danny Trejo to help cure him of his insufferable disease.
Magicked
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2025 • 10 Minute
Director: Cooper Barnes
A nice evening at The Magic Castle is ruined when Matty, a guy with a track record for causing problems, physically assaults a magician in the middle of a magic-trick-gone-wrong. He and his fed-up sister Janet lock themselves in a bathroom until they can devise a way to get out of the building without being arrested.
May I Put You On Hold?
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2025 • 13 Minute
Director: Ash Blodgett
While dealing with telephone customer service, Liz is accidentally transferred to the Afterlife. Now, stuck between death and hold music, Liz must outwit cosmic bureaucracy and discover what really matters, if she wants to get back to the land of the living.
Neo Dome
Narrative • Action/Thriller/Science-Fiction • USA • 2025 • 15 Minute
Director: Bonnie Discepolo
A woman hitchhikes to a utopia on the horizon. When she negotiates a ride we learn: trust no one on the road to the Dome.
Nervous Ravenous Hunger
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 12 Minute
Director: Jorge Cotte
A theater director and young playwright manifest a new, more extreme intimacy, where memories and reality blur, when one of them produces a play that jeopardizes their unspoken agreement to deny their desire for one another.
No Clean Hammer
Narrative • Comedy • Bosnia & Herzegovina • 2025 • 16 Minute
Director: Brent L. Butler
No Clean Hammer follows Izet, a solitary man from Bosnia, as he drives from Tuzla to Sweden to recover his mother’s body. Based on a story passed down generations in diaspora, the short unfolds as folktale, capturing the surreal and absurdist aftermath of the Bosnian wars.
No Nation
Narrative • Science-Fiction • Netherlands/USA • 2025 • 17 Minute
Director: Jeffrey Elmont
In a climate-decimated future where the sun has turned lethal and the world’s remaining resources are nearly gone, humanity survives underground, governed by violent tribal rituals used to settle disputes and maintain control. When a young woman makes a desperate, high-stakes gamble to change her fate, she is forced into a brutal contest where survival comes at an unimaginable cost.
Paper Swans
Narrative • Suspense/Romance • USA • 2025 • 14 Minute
Director: Sehar Batra
On a stormy night, Cole shows up at his former lover Aurora’s house, who he hasn’t seen in years. The initial tension and awkwardness eventually gives way to nostalgia, and the suggestion that all is not well between the two—at least not from Cole’s side. But as the night progresses, Cole slowly learns that he’s not the only one who holds secrets; something more sinister is afoot.
Pearls
Narrative • Suspense/Romance • United Kingdom • 2025 • 15 Minute
Director: Sehar Batra
Tony and Linda are struggling to grow their family. When Tony is forced to face his fertility issues, he turns to a mysterious oyster dealer, Marvin. Whose oysters deliver more than their promise of virility.
Pelacaras
Narrative • Thriller/Horror • USA • 2025 • 10 Minute
Director: Ricardo Albarrán
After her husband’s mysterious disappearance, a mother hides the truth from her daughter, and silence itself becomes the horror consuming them both.
Permanent Residence
Narrative • Thriller/Horror • USA • 2026 • 10 Minute
Director: Bi An
An ordinary immigration interview. What could possibly go wrong?
Pippa And Leon
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 19 Minute
Director: Abeille Tard
Pippa lives in a supervised home for young mothers with adjustment difficulties, the time to demonstrate to the authorities her ability to fulfill her parental role. For one night, and despite the curfew imposed on her, Pippa leaves the shelter with her baby.
Places We Know
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 20 Minute
Director: Oliver William Staton
A young Japanese American returns to his childhood home in Japan where he reunites with his estranged family. When unexpected complications arise, he faces a difficult decision: cling to cherished memories or confront the painful reality.
Plasticized
Narrative • Horror? • Spain • 2025 • 6 Minute
Director: Nerea Úbeda Segura
A fisherman gobbles up a package of crackers and throws the wrapper into the sea, while waiting on the shore for a fish to take the bait. What the bait bites, however, is not exactly what he expected.
Pocketman
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2025 • 2 Minute
Director: Ericka Clevenger
Careful what you put in your pocket.
Pool
Narrative • Horror/Comedy • USA • 2025 • 5 Minute
Director: Cameron Fife & Josh Zuckerman
When a house-sitter breaks a house rule, he faces the house consequences.
Quiet Tonight
Narrative • Drama/Horror • USA • 2026 • 19 Minute
Director: Thomas Nicol
Donnie and Lydia discuss a an impossible dilemma while desperately trying not to wake the thing in the next room.
Ripple
Narrative • Drama/Horror • USA • 2025 • 13 Minute
Director: Erick Juarez
Three interconnected people tell a tragic story of loss and regret, connecting a mother, her estranged daughter facing her own struggles, and a remorseful man in a heartbreaking chain of events.
Rooftop Lempicka (Lempicka Trên Mái Nhà)
Narrative • Drama • Vietnam/USA • 2025 • 20 Minute
Director: Nguyễn Lương Hằng
2002 Saigon, Vietnam. While her mother is expecting their second child, young Thi befriends Ngoc, a club waitress who has just moved in as a tenant in their family home. As their friendship grows, she discovers that Ngoc is secretly a sex worker. Meanwhile, an art book of Tamara de Lempicka’s female nudes, stolen from a bookshop, silently bears witness.
The Search For Concentration
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2025 • 5 Minute
Director: Danny Fain
A student on the spectrum navigates through absurdist hurdles to get a refill on his prescription.
Shit For Mum
Narrative • Comedy/Drama • Spain • 2024 • 4 Minute
Director: Rocío Rubio
Shit for Mom is a short story that immerses us into Paula’s new life. She is an actress who has just become a mother. She is shedding her old skin and getting ready for a new role. She takes care of her baby all by herself.
Siren
Narrative • Drama • Canada • 2025 • 15 Minute
Director: Marilou Caravecchia-Pelletier
On the eve of an important synchronized swimming competition, Mathilde is drowning in glitter and pressure. She must choose between shining for others or blossoming for herself.
The Solution
Narrative • Thriller/Horror • Canada • 2025 • 17 Minute
Director: John Klein & Steve Kniss
A math professor, rejected over and over again for publication, finds herself supplanted by her genius-level teaching assistant, and resorts to drastic measures to re-assert her authority.
Soul Of The City
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 8 Minute
Director: Roger Melvin
In Leimert Park, Los Angeles, Chris, a rehabilitated pedicab driver and his female passenger, Jasmine, receive a stark reminder that, despite your good intentions in life, judgment can haunt you anywhere.
Sound Asleep
Narrative • Comedy • Spain/United Kingdom • 2025 • 6 Minute
Director: Nadaav Soudry
Deen Peels needs sleep, but the world just won’t shut up. Over one relentless night, he’s determined to take back control – even if it kills him.
Sunlight, Veiled
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 14 Minute
Director: Sina Khani
At a company party, Forough, an Iranian intern, becomes the target of a psychological game orchestrated by her boss.
The Super
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 11 Minute
Director: Michael Marc Friedman
Bobby, a New York Super following in his father’s footsteps wants to be a super for his tenants to depend on. After witnessing his father save a tenant’s life as a teenager Bobby sees his future and is desperate to live up to his father’s legacy.
Synthesize Me
Narrative • Drama • USA/Mexico/Netherlands • 2025 • 16 Minute
Director: Bear Damen
Violeta, the young daughter of a widowed electrical maintenance worker, retreats to her mother’s neglected music workshop to play music to remember her. When she causes a widespread power cut tensions rise between father and daughter bringing their grief to boiling point.
Time Is Money
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 11 Minute
Director: Duran Jones
Jace, a financially challenged writer/director and self-proclaimed graduate of the school of Mark Duplass, delivers packages to survive while struggling to secure funds for his first indie feature. A bonus for the top-ranked delivery driver could solve his problems.
Twofer
Narrative • Thriller/Horror • USA • 2025 • 6 Minute
Director: Jenny Waldo
A thrilling, under-10-minute short film, Twofer plays with expectations and assumptions about the characters, peeling like an onion to reveal darker, rotten layers, leaving the audience conflicted about who to root for.
Umbra
Narrative • Thriller/Horror • USA • 2025 • 7 Minute
Director: Danny Bohmer
A short horror film dealing with the fear of the dark.
Used To Be
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 8 Minute
Director: Matt Webb
Ally struggles daily with her anxiety and panic attacks, fighting to show herself kindness and grace in the midst of her battles.
We Regret To Inform You
Narrative • Drama • USA/Greece • 2025 • 13 Minute
Director: Michelle Bossy
Set in a dehumanized society of the near future, technology has replaced nearly all human interaction, isolating people under the guise of ‘optimization.’ In this setting, the government provides ‘last day notification’ services wherein all citizens are contacted with a 24-hour courtesy call warning them of their impending death. Precisely one day before her predetermined passing, Mariam receives such a call from Bob, a real-life operator that is on his first day on the job, informing her of her final day.
We Should Eat
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2025 • 10 Minute
Director: Shaina Feinberg
When a family gathers for a seemingly ordinary dinner, a 12-year-old’s school project on identity sparks unexpected revelations. As each family member reflects on who they are and what they truly desire, the evening unravels into a thoughtful exploration of self-discovery—with some surprising changes to the menu.
What Once Was
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 11 Minutes
Director: Alexander Tammaru
Zara and Andre are both at the end of their ropes of their current relationship. Zara’s sister just passed away and Andre is moving. On the day before Andre leaves, and at the wake of Zara’s sister, they discuss the next steps in their relationship, but they don’t seem to be on the same page.
The Woman In The Bed
Narrative • Horror • United Kingdom • 2025 • 5 Minutes
Director: Victor Mellors
An elderly woman awakes to discover she is unable to speak or move. Trapped in her bed, she soon realises that she is not alone.
Worst. Experience. Ever.
Narrative • Comedy/Drama • United Kingdom • 2025 • 15 Minutes
Director: Alex Boutell
Maya’s days working at a small shop take a surreal turn when her boss makes a bombshell revelation. As unsettling truths begin to surface, Maya discovers her supposedly ordinary life might be an elaborate fabrication. In this darkly comic tale, a simple confession spirals into an existential crisis.
Yoga Girl
Narrative • Comedy/Drama • USA • 2025 • 9 Minutes
Director: Kaitlyn Furey
A woman struggles to stay committed to her daily wellness rituals while on the brink of a mental breakdown.
You Get What You Pay For
Narrative • Comedy/Drama • United Kingdom • 2025 • 10 Minutes
Director: Jeff Low & David Kolbusz
As a suicidal man hands over serious cash to a stranger as part of an exchange, it’s clear that everything is not what it seems. Hired killings are on the menu, but just who is pulling the strings?
Youth Promised Me So Much
Narrative •Drama • Kyrgyzstan • 2025 • 15 Minutes
Director: Azamat Satybaldiev
35-year-old Bolot dreams of becoming a great screenwriter, but he’s stuck in a creative rut. With only three days left to submit a screenplay, he finds himself paralyzed by doubt and fear every time he sits down to write.
Animated Short Films
Anaglyph
Narrative • Drama • Spain • 2025 • 9 Minutes
Director: Valle Comba
Violet lives in a red, anxious world. She can’t take it anymore, eaten away by so many little things. She feels an invisible haunting presence, jumbling her reality. Violet must learn to see in a new way to understand herself, her mind, her ghosts.
Baking With Boris
Narrative • Drama • France • 2024 • 8 Minutes
Director: Maša Avramović
Every morning, Boris the village baker makes a fresh batch of crusty bread and pastries for all his neighbours until… Achoo! He can’t stop sneezing. He has become allergic to flour. How will he manage to keep baking for everyone in the village?
Buster Boone
Narrative • Comedy • USA • 2025 • 2 Minutes
Director: Maša Avramović
Buster Boone is a wanted man. He’s been on the run for so long, he thinks everything is out to get him. Maybe he’s crazy, or maybe he’s not, either way, there’s a bounty on his head.
Draft Paper
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2025 • 15 Minutes
Director: Olivia Moon
Modeled after the real-life practice of US sailors being forced to censor their pin-up tattoos during World War II, Draft Paper tells the story of an unfulfilled fashion designer who has to face the moral and personal implications of creating his art during a tumultuous time in history.
Dream Defenders
Narrative • Action/Comedy • USA • 2025 • 4 Minutes
Director: Nicole Nowel
A trio of scrappy yet lovable plushies, known as the Dream Defenders, must fight off nightmares and save their frightened kid, Sammy.
Eat Your Fish
Narrative • Fantasy • France • 2025 • 6 Minutes
Director: Marc-Antoine Bricout, Arthur Rouvres, Mathieu Beaussart, Maria Amzal, Andy Helli
In this fable, a little bear cub must learn to deal with his emotions after his first encounter with death.
Every Dog Has Its Day
Narrative • Fantasy • South Africa • 2025 • 7 Minutes
Director: Lindsay Van Blerk
Every Dog has its Day is a detailed observation of a small event that relies on warmth, charm and character rather than scale and spectacle to tell the story of a little dog and its owner.
Facade
Narrative • Drama • USA • 2026 • 3 Minutes
Director: Sam Slowik
Featuring Lego man as he discovers ways to cover up his real face and emotions wondering why he would want to look like himself when he can look like everyone else.
Fellow
Narrative • Drama • France • 2025 • 7 Minutes
Director: Martha Rivière, Laura Darras, Théo Bergougnoux, Gaspard Keller de Schleitheim, Johanne Coppier, Romane Casha
After a bloody battle in the First World War, a German Red Cross dog scours the devastated landscape for survivors. When he finds a wounded and terrified young soldier, he decides to take him back to the safety of the camp. Their fragile complicity becomes a glimmer of humanity in the midst of the absurdity of war.
Good Luck To You All
Narrative • Comedy/Drama • France • 2025 • 7 Minutes
Director: Cordell Barker
A young girl plays with her toys, unaware that she might just be holding humanity’s remote control. Voices of tech experts blend innocence, hope and mild panic about AI. This whimsical yet cautionary tale asks: Who controls AI, who profits, and who’s still waiting for the manual?
Hell
Narrative • Comedy/Drama • USA • 2026 • 5 Minutes
Director: Parker Croft
A place where dreams are real, wishes come true, and everything is always awful for everyone.
Help Me Tom
Narrative • Drama/War • China • 2025 • 15 Minutes
Director: Jiahang Yang
The story of a retired robot and the rebirth of the town it loves
Kamarade
Narrative • Science-Fiction • France • 2025 • 8 Minutes
Director: Garance Valere, Valentin Okoundou, Hubert Chauvaux, Alice Bourget, Louise Laurent, Fleuriane Le Guillou
In a soviet space station, Katerina the robot welcomes Yuri, her human comrade and counterpart. Together they will accomplish their space mission to make their nation proud. As soon as he arrives, a routine sets in and a friendship begins to grow. But one day, something shakes Iouri deeply. He changes, pulls away without saying why. Lost and confused, Katerina tries to understand what’s going on, before experienving a very human emotion: loneliness.
Langue de Chat
Narrative • France • 2025 • 8 Minutes
Director: Sarah Legras-Marie, Alexia Monnier, Timothée Beauville, Sibylle Bank De Loof, Cindy Ly, Assia Le Tellier, Al Charvet
While attending a family reunion, little Léo videotapes the guests and is intrigued by the unflattering animal monikers they secretly call each other. His imagination goes wild, to the point of picturing them as a spectacular menagerie.
The Nest
Narrative • Fantasy • France • 2025 • 7 Minutes
Director: Aurélien Coquery, Léa Kermanach, Soline Mauguin, Abel Tixador, Jean Baounon, Romane Selter-Fiette
A shy young luthier, Aurore returns to work in the family’s prestigious workshop. As she reunites with her beloved mother, she uncovers a monstrous family secret. What seemed like a safe haven may in fact be the most insidious of traps. Will she find the strength to break free from her mother’s nest?
Pas de Deux!
Narrative • Horror • USA/United Kingdom • 2025 • 4 Minutes
Director: Nathan Koranda
The chaos of a flashback is transformed into a visceral performance as two bodies struggle for control in this grotesque dance for two.
Rush To Be Ready
Narrative • USA • 2025 • 1 Minutes
Director: Maria Eleni Sterr
Her friend is going to be there in 5 minutes
Still Moving
Narrative • Drama • Canada • 2025 • 11 Minutes
Director: Rui Ting Ji
After her divorce, a mother drives a rented moving truck with her daughter in the passenger seat. The two head into a new future, only to discover the pain and difficulties of leaving the past behind.
Susurros
Narrative • Drama • France • 2025 • 7 Minute
Director: Alexandra Pewinski, Marie Lombard, Florian Reignier, Emma Pluchard, Lisa Francillon, Alice Parmentier
From the witch hunts of 17th-century Europe to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States in 2022, Susurros follows the story of two women faced with a pregnancy they did not choose. Separated by four centuries, Maria and Adeleida see their destinies echo each other inevitably. In the shadow of obscurantism, history repeats itself.
The Trial
Narrative • Drama • France • 2025 • 5 Minutes
Director: Lian Cornieux, Ingrid Lala, Agathe Arduini, Ilan Blauwblomme
A young woman mentally constructs her own trial and comes face to face with a masculine justice system.
Two Ships
Narrative • Horror • Portugal • 2025 • 6 Minutes
Director: McKinley Benson
While working opposite schedules, a couple attempts to maintain their connection through fleeting encounters.
WildKind
It’s Complicated • Drama • Northern Ireland • 2025 • 8 Minutes
Director: John McDaid
Voiced by three generations of one family, WildKind is a poem painted to awaken the senses, a fluid journey of hope and healing across our shared watercolour motherland. A universal bedtime story, a call to nurture a life wild and kind.
Wolf Rayet
Narrative • Fantasy • France • 2025 • 5 Minutes
Director: Emma Corbillon, Julie Demelle, Alexandra Ventouras, Mélanie Sthehlé, Perryne Crevier
Eva, a fashionable young model, is about to close the show at Fashion Week for one of the world’s leading haute couture houses. But pressure and other people’s opinions will turn her dream into a nightmare
Documentary Shorts
A Bit Of Everything And Matzoh Balls Too
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 20 Minutes
Director: Emily Lobsenz
It came over on scraps of paper, in memories of those pursuing opportunity or fleeing persecution. Helping people adapt to new environments while allowing them to hold onto what they’d left behind, Matzo Ball Soup is the protagonist of a perpetually evolving tale of how we become who we are. Shot in verité style, stories unfold as if around a family’s hearth. Characters peeling away onion layers, complete one sentence as they interrupt another, a thought trailing off only to be picked up a few tangents later. Specific ingredients become amorphous as they’re added to the perpetually evolving pot of how we become who we are.
A City That Cares
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 14 Minutes
Director: Aaron Hose
A legal educator reflects on her work as an activist along the US-Mexico border, a journey that guides her and her students to a compassionate Texas community where generosity and empathy are deeply intertwined.
Beneath The Same Sky
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 12 Minutes
Director: Christine Kane
In the borderlands of El Paso, Texas, Fidel confronts the complex reality of his life as a Border Patrol agent. Finding himself at the edge of two nations, he works to enforce the law while uncovering the human stories behind the headlines—of dreams pursued and lost, hopes carried and shattered.
Blueprint For My People
Documentary • USA • 2023 • 10 Minutes
Director: Carol Bash
Blueprint For My People is a short film that illuminates the African-American experience by lyrically interweaving spoken-word narration of Margaret Walker’s epic poem, “For My People” with contemporary images and rare 19th century cyanotypes (blue photographic prints known as “blueprints”) of African Americans. By incorporating poetry, cyanotypes, contemporary imagery and graphics, the film captures the struggles of a people—through candid moments—whose lives created the context of American culture.
Breaking Ice: The Making Of Cracks In The Ice
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 5 Minutes
Director: Jason Lindsey
Breaking Ice follows photographer Jason Lindsey as he creates his “Cracks in the Ice” series, prompted by his son’s question about what the world will look like due to climate change. Unable to give clear answers to a child who craves stability due to his medical history, Lindsey turns to art to explore this question.
Clack Mountain Clay
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 5 Minutes
Director: Jeffrey Hill
Quinn Maher discusses working with clay from Clack Mountain in Rowan county Kentucky.
Dave Muir: All Or Nothing
Documentary • United Kingdom • 2025 • 8 Minutes
Director: Hugo Pettit
This is a brief look into the effect of seasonality on mental health. Despite leading the ‘perfect life’, running a surf school on one of the UK’s most perfect beaches, is a seasonal life as enviable as it looks from the outside?
KosherSoul
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 13 Minutes
Director: Ilja Sarro
James Beard Award-winning author and culinary historian, Michael W. Twitty emphasizes that cooking is not just about the recipe, but the people who create it. Twitty discusses the significance of a kosher meal prepared by Black Jewish chefs, marking a historic moment for the African Jewish diaspora. He emphasizes that this event is about community and bridging gaps through shared meals, showcasing how food can foster dialogue and understanding among diverse groups.
La Fenêtre
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 9 Minutes
Director: Lucas Ortiz Estefanell
A visually immersive documentary short that blurs the line between reality and the synthetic, exploring our perception of truth through the impact of AI on art and cinema.
Let Kids Play
Documentary • Canada • 2025 • 17 Minutes
Director: Benjamin Gagné
While many summer camps in Quebec struggle to maintain their operations, “Laissez-nous aller jouer” invites us into the daily lives filled with joys, sorrows, and learning experiences of the people that make these places so magical.
Miles Of Life
Documentary • Uganda • 2025 • 15 Minutes
Director: Charli Doherty
After falling short of his athletic dreams, a once-promising Ugandan runner rediscovers purpose – using the power of sport to rebuild his broken community and to honour his trainer’s life.
My Memory-Walls
Documentary • Canada • 2025 • 13 Minutes
Director: Axel Robin
Rose G. Lévesque, an almost nonagenarian painter and poet, painted the story of her life on her house’s walls to transform it into a museum.
OH YEAH!
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 17 Minutes
Director: Nick Canfield
The story of the iconic electronic music group Yello and their classic 1980’s hit song. Oh Yeah is one of the most recognizable songs of all time, made famous by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and embodies 80’s American culture more than any other song. While not well known in the United States, the Swiss duo that founded Yello have been making avant-garde music and videos for over 45 years.
Post Conviction
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 40 Minutes
Director: Margaret Byrne
Post Conviction exposes the miscarriage of justice endured by Roosevelt Myles, a man whose fight for exoneration in the face of Chicago’s flawed justice system has become one of the longest running post-conviction cases in the country. With unprecedented access to the Cook County criminal courts, the documentary paints a vivid portrait of Roosevelt’s relentless struggle to clear his name and the profound impact of systemic injustice on his life and community.
Shell Yeah
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 5 Minutes
Director: Sam Graff
A musician, his shells, and the surprising sounds they create.
The Healing Circle
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 23 Minutes
Director: Thavary Krouch
The Healing Circle is a short documentary following Cambodian genocide survivors as they gather in Chicago to share stories, sing traditional songs, and reflect on their journey toward healing. Through performances and intimate conversations, the film honors their strength and the power of cultural memory passed from one generation to the next.
The Second Life Of Freddie Nole
Documentary • USA • 2025 • 21 Minutes
Director: Dana Nachman
Freddie Nole drives to meet a man walking out of prison and as this vérité road trip unfolds, we learn the remarkable story behind Freddie’s mission, a staggering mistake that cost him 50 years of freedom.
You Found A Friend In Elvis
Documentary • United Kingdom • 2025 • 11 Minutes
Director: Janie Price
Musician Janie Price watched a documentary about music legend Roy Orbison. In it, his son tells a short story so extraordinary that it inspires her to write a song and eventually travel to the USA in search of the truth.
Music Videos
December by Kainen Kellum
Music Video • USA • 2025 • 5 Minutes
Director: Dalten Martin
December is a visual poem about grief, friendship, and remembering those we’ve lost. Through a quiet journey between two lifelong friends – Kainen and Walt – the video unfolds with emotional restraint and deep undercurrents of memory. Set against a rural backdrop, it captures the unique kind of comfort only found in shared silence, old roads, and the ghosts of small towns.
Kingdom Of The Penguins
Music Video • Netherlands • 2025 • 4 Minutes
Director: Lionel Ziblat
It’s Covid time, and five musicians join forces during COVID to record a perfect rendition of an instrumental piece by Lionel Ziblat.
Other I
Music Video • France • 2025 • 3 Minutes
Director: Alina Popescu
In a vast cathedral devoted to a strange, otherworldly deity, a young girl offers gifts that begin as harmless token of devotion but escalate into brutal sacrifices of her own body. This haunting allegory asks what happens when blind faith and the comforts we never question demand more of us than we have to give.
What if I Die Flying Over Oklahoma?
Music Video • USA • 2025 • 5 Minutes
Director: H. Nelson Tracey
Trapped in the middle seat, singer-songwriter Rae Isla spirals into an existential crisis that transforms airplane anxiety into a surreal question of “what if?”
Wild Cat
Music Video • USA • 2025 • 4 Minutes
Director: Ava R Kahut
Wild Cat is a synth camp video centered on a feline-inspired Cruella de Vil and her mischievous kitties who attempt to break free from her grasp.
You’re Bad
Music Video • USA • 2025 • 4 Minutes
Director: Dylan Silver & Blue Gerber
When Dylan’s crush steps into the chocolate shop where she works, time literally stands still and a whirlwind of fantasy turns an ordinary shift into a delicious daydream.
