Being Ten, Fatemeh Jafari, Iran, 2023, 18’07’’
A father and his ten-year-old son live in a lonely cottage in the middle of a dense wood. The father, a hunter, spares one of his prizes and brings it home as a present for his son. What, at first, was just a plaything forever will change the young boy's life.
Cyclepaths, Anton Cla, Belgium, 2023, 12’25’’
An old woman is carrying her shopping bags. A child with a gun on his back riding a scooter. Birds are flying. A city is falling. A party is lit.
The Water Ghost, Hongzhou Xue, United Kingdom, 2023, 4’50’’
An epic on the smallest scale. A romantic poem about my childhood. A subjective fantasy that changes the memories of the past. False memory can reveal the true self.
Temporarily Removed, Dotan Goldwaser, Yoav Brill, Israel, 2023, 14’13’’
Deep inside a municipal art museum, a single guard is the sole queen of a small exhibition. When being forced to leave the room, her exile becomes a journey in search of a new home.
Just Keep Breathing, Anej Golčar, United Kingdom, 2023, 6’15’’
Victor is stuck next to an intrusive stranger on a low-budget airliner. The crackling candy wrapper, the smacking of the lips, oh, just give him a break. No, he doesn't want your candy, thank you very much, Victor isn't hungry. There's no escape, thirty-five thousand feet in the air. So, just keep breathing.
Baking With Piggu, Claire Schlaikjer, USA, 2023, 3’27’’
There’s a party. There’s a cake. And Piggu wants a piece. Piggu is a stuffed pig chasing the pleasures of a material world beyond his own. Trapped in his own soft body, Piggu nonetheless attempts to participate. Will he find what he seeks, or will his struggles end in heartbreak.
Braided, Chenxi Zhang, USA, 2023, 6’19’’
Mom always meticulously braided my hair tightly, so tight that it pulled a clear path on top of my head. But one day, she cut off my braids. I didn't want to resist, yet I had to accept it. As I took my first steps forward alone, my stride faltered. Along the path on my head, I touched our unbreakable inner attachment, and the journey of female growth we were both unprepared to face.
Wait for me in a dream, Natalia Durszewicz, Poland, 2023, 14’56’’
Wait for me in a dream is a poetic story about an elderly married couple shown with the use of painterly animation. Isolated from the world and condemned to loneliness, Bronka and Zygfryd experience a slow defragmentation of their reality caused by the woman's illness and the adversities associated with it. On their final journey, they experience moments of regret, pain and even repulsion. However, for all their worth they try to remember the love that used to last between them.
