SHORT FILM 🎬 Yellow Ticket

 

Mr. Valentine teaches literature at a bilingual high school in Poland; today is his last lesson as a teacher before he assumes the new position of principal. His students are, by and large, wealthy and well-off, the future elite of the country. But they are also cynical, blase and obsessed with their phones, and Mr. Valentine lays into them about using A.I. for writing their assigned essays. The teacher does his best to get through to his students, teaching a lesson on Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky and how his work anticipated the rise of perilous ideologies in Russia. But when they fail to engage with the lesson, he takes drastic measures to grab their attention. Mr. Valentine then demands his students write a response on its themes, but when he realizes none of his students have even read the text, he is infuriated. As the teacher, actor Rene Zagger offers an impassioned, fierce turn as an educator who fervently believes in his mission but is dismayed and then enraged by the growing detachment of his students. He knows what he is teaching -- and the discussion it should engender --has relevance more than ever, but his students are too removed and absorbed to pay attention, much less care. So he decides to wake them up with a drastic, even dangerous gesture. 

Director: Piotr Toczynski 

Writer: Piotr Toczynski 

Stars: René Zagger, Paulina Chapko, Alicja Wieniawa-Narkiewicz

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 The Interpreter

 

Belma is a Turkish interpreter going through a romantic crisis when she's asked to fill in for someone who interprets for patients in a London hospital. She's deft with languages, but working in the National Health Service is challenging. 

Director: Andrea M. Catinella 

Writer: Yasmine Alice 

Stars: Yasmine Alice, Dan Robins, Mensah Bediako

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Self Love

 

In a secluded cabin, a quiet retreat turns into an unexpected journey of reflection and revelation. 

Director: Blake Ridder 

Writer: Blake Ridder 

Stars: Blake Ridder • Sofia Unal

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Sardinia

 

Ryszard is a serious Polish-American man, a husband and a son who works in a dour office. When a contagious epidemic of uncontrollable laughter befalls the world, Ryszard becomes immune, exacerbating his already acute feelings of isolation and difference. As the epidemic escalates, Ryszard watches as society becomes more dysfunctional. And when his cheerful wife is stricken, his sadness becomes a palpable grief for a world that's rapidly changing.

Director: Paul Kowalski 

Writer: Paul Kowalski 

Stars: Philip Ettinger • Olek Krupa • Martha Plimpton

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Model Citizen

 

A mailman develops a dangerous obsession with a pregnant woman on his mailroute and goes to extreme lengths to prove his love.

Director: Rachael Dahl 

Writer: Rachael Dahl 

Stars: Travis Hammer • Katie Michels • Ronin Lee

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Offline

 

A terrible honest short film about the final cut of a commercial film. An online meeting, a demand in political correctness manner, an embarrassing moment and a proposition putting that moment in ambiguous light. But shocking is the speechless last scenes between a member of team and food courier. A film about color of skin, contempt about the others (and hipocrisy as a sort of bribe), a young director witness of massacre against her film, accepting it, like the appropriated from client for a presumed beautiful future. A not comfortable short film, first for embarassing truths revealed in their full nakedness. 

Directors: Daniel Fure Schwarz • Mauritz Brekke Solberg 

Writers: Daniel Fure Schwarz • Mauritz Brekke Solberg 

Stars: Marit Andreassen • Alexander de Senger • Laila Goody 

Country of origin: Norway

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Pull Over Right Here

 

During a driver’s ed lesson, Hayley is forced to pull over to the side of the road so her instructor, Glen, can tell her about his estranged daughter. She does her best to navigate the situation, trying to figure out whether or not things are headed in a dangerous direction.

Directed by Erin Elders 

Stars: David Yow • Ava Bellows

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Listen

 

Copenhagen. A police station. A foreign woman, wearing a burqa, is there with her young son to file a complaint. Yet, it seems the translator is not willing to report what she is telling. 

Directors: Rungano Nyoni, Hamy Ramezan 

Writers: Rungano Nyoni, Hamy Ramezan 

Stars: Yusuf Kamal El-Ali, Zeinab Rahal, Amira Helene Larsen

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Borne

 

When Kate, an isolated and vulnerable young mother struggling to make ends meet, is offered help by her neighbour Marie, she finds herself pulled into a community that may not be as virtuous as it seems. 

Director: Claire Heather Molloy 

Writers: Claire Heather Molloy, Anna Moore 

Stars: Kobi Fowkes, Ashley Gadsby, Grace Hogg-Robinson

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 No Dogs

 

“No Dogs” is a short film set against the backdrop of the Watsonville Riots of 1930 when anti-Filipino violence raged across California’s Central Valley. It confronts the history of racial discrimination against Filipinos. Written by Alex S. Fabros, Jr. and Georgina Tolentino the 2021 film introduces audiences to Marisol, a Filipina who seeks safety after the bombing of a taxi dance hall where Filipino men and white women socialize. As the night grows darker and the sounds of gunshots louder, Marisol finds herself in the most unlikely of places: seated in a diner with a white man named Carl. 

Director: Randal Kamradt 

Writers: Alex Fabros, Georgina Tolentino 

Stars: Georgina Tolentino, Ian Coleman

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Deal of a Lifetime

 

A thrifty, cash-strapped neurotic visits a funeral home to try to negotiate a buy-one-get-one-free deal on burials. 

Director: Lev Pakman 

Writer: Lev Pakman 

Stars: Connor Ausman, David Cross, Anne Hallinan

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Lunch Time

 

A 16-year-old girl arrives at the hospital to identify her mother's body. However, the hospital staff, concerned about her young age, denies her access to the morgue. She faces great obstacles as she tries to navigate the opaque layers of policies and bureaucracy in order to identify the body. She has no uncle, grandfather or father to accompany her or vouch for her. But after much begging and pleading, the receptionist finally allows her to go back. But when she finally gets a private moment with the body, the young girl has more on her mind than simply saying goodbye, as a whole other layer of action and meaning unfolds. The short has been nominated for a Palme d’Or at the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. 

Director: Alireza Ghasemi 

Writer: Alireza Ghasemi 

Stars: Khorshid Cheraghipour, Roya Bakhtiyari, Amir Taghdiri

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Unleaded

 

In the middle of the night, a couple of thugs attempt to rob a remote petrol station on the highway. But when everything seems over, a car with three stoners with a serious case of the munchies parks outside and the driver enters the shop. As the robbery is interrupted by this improbable hero, the ruthless robber holds our hero at gunpoint, nevertheless, what will happen next, is anyone's guess. 

Director: Luke Davies 

Writer: Luke Davies 

Stars: Geoffrey A.Austin, Hiran Abeysekera, Josef Altin

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Whispers Among Wolves

 

Every Wednesday, alcoholic CEO, Shilo and her long suffering assistant, Teddy meet to conduct matters of business. But on this particular evening, secrets will be uncovered, old wounds will be reopened and their unique co-dependency will come under scrutiny.  

Director: Kevin Lim 

Writer: Kevin Lim 

Stars: Sarah Aubrey, Matthew Backer, Vojtech Cekal

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 What's Virgin Mean?

 

A woman cooks while her young daughter does her colouring in at the table. All is well until the daughter pipes up to ask her mother what "virgin" means. Sometimes little questions need big answers...

Director: Michael Davies 

Writer: Michael Davies 

Stars: Kate Isitt, Rebecca Duffy

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Hitch Hike

 

A young man is hitchhiking across New Zealand, making his way through the striking stretches of landscape. But he's not just enjoying the scenery -- he's on a search for his birth mother, and by extension, his identity. Along the way, he encounters an intimidating man with unsavory tattoos inked all over his body -- and discovers just what "family" really means. 

Director: Matthew J. Saville 

Writer: Matthew J. Saville 

Stars: Aaron McGregor, Bruce Saville, Calvin Tuteao

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Still Me

 

After coming to terms with their identity, it's time for Bailey to come out at school. However, this proves harder than they anticipate and Bailey is faced with a choice between social ridicule or the closet.

Directors: Michael Hardinge, Jay Beckerleg, Sam Jelley 

Stars: Alanah Parkin, Kallan Adelaide, Carolyn Masson

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 The Cardinal & The Computer

 

Cardinal Thomas is a priest and religious dignitary summoned by Dylan, a tech visionary, to meet his newest creation. He's asked to put on special glasses and go into a glass room, where he meets Ari, an A.I. creation that takes the shape of a young woman. Cardinal Thomas is against artificial intelligence and doesn't understand why he's there. But when Ari proclaims she is a Christian, the cardinal is skeptical but intrigued. 

Director: Scott Fitzloff 

Writer: Scott Fitzloff 

Stars: Emma Reinagel, Will Mueller, Daniel Fitzgerald

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 The Cab

 

The Cab explores the mind of a woman with depression through a fantastical ride in a NYC Taxicab. The film follows the passenger, Eva, as she discovers she is in no ordinary cab, but rather a purgatory space to determine her final resting place after dying by suicide. With the help of the Cabbie, she must dive deep within and come to terms with the darkest parts of herself to guarantee safe passage. 

Director: Nicole Melillo 

Writer: Nicole Melillo 

Stars: Michael Siberry, Hana Chamoun

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 MOP

 

Ayu (Mia Sabrina Mahadir) works for Cecilia (Lim Mei Fen) at her family's furniture store. But there is something else going on in their relationship, and over lunch break, the two play out a wild, sexual game that exposes their power dynamic.  When the employee makes a simple mistake – forgetting the chili sauce in her boss’ order – it unleashes a situation that reveals the true nature of their roles. In Mop, writer/director Joon Fong Goh paints a gripping portrait of a complicated and twisted sadomasochistic relationship between two women, whose workplace hierarchy is established by pushing the limits of his concept and playing with the audience’s expectations. Goh confessed that the core idea of the film came from his children, who used him first as a chair, and later other pieces of furniture, when they were playing. “I thought it could be an interesting metaphor for the ways we are dependent on each other, and the ways we use each other”, he explained. Adding that he believes “every relationship is sadomasochistic” and that “we hurt each other” and “love each other”. A realization that prompted him to capture this ever evolving shift in power dynamics, using a tangible metaphor to depict them in a way that is both delightfully twisted and effective. “I wanted to make visible the invisible, and bring to the surface all the messy, fucked up things we do to each other”, he adds. 

Director: Joon Goh 

Writer: Joon Goh 

Stars: Mia Sabrina Mahadir, Mei Fen Lim