Category: Best Experimental Film – 2025 ARFF Barcelona

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Return To Planet Underground (Part1)

Director’s Name: Gideon Homes

Writer’s Name: Gideon Homes

Producer: Gideon Homes

Country of Origin: Netherlands

Country of Filming : Netherlands

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes 10 seconds

Film Description:

A former underground techno dj working at a big famous law firm spirals down to dark sides of society where the war already started and finds himself in moral grayareas. With one eye on the past and one eye on the future he stirs among the ashes of the real underground.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Sombras Chinas

Director’s Name: Sebaztian Baz

Writer’s Name: Sebaztian Baz

Producer: Sebaztian Baz, Gerónimo Stewart

Country of Origin: Argentina

Country of Filming: Argentina

Language: Spanish

Runtime: 1 hour 36 minutes

Film Description:

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: 2’30”

Director’s Name: Tommy Chae

Writer’s Name: Tommy Chae

Producer: Flavia Angelico

Country of Origin: Brazil

Country of Filming: Brazil

Language: English

Runtime: 2 minutes 30 seconds

Film Description:

A reflection on the role of work in society and its impact on the individual.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Between Outcry and Prison: A Lolita Lebrón Story

Director’s Name: Efraín Rosa

Writer’s Name: Waldo Torres, Viviana Torres-Mestey

Producer: Viviana Torres-Mestey

Country of Origin: Puerto Rico

Country of Filming: Puerto Rico

Language: Spanish

Runtime: 1 hour 11 minutes 12 seconds

Film Description:

Between Outcry and Prison: A Lolita Lebrón Story is a film adaptation of the theatrical monologue “Lolita: A Monologue About the Life of Lolita Lebrón,” which has been performed over the past 11 years both locally and internationally, with more than 60 performances in 5 countries, 5 states in North America, and over 40 municipalities in Puerto Rico. The action is set in late 1954, when political prisoner Lolita Lebrón had already been sentenced to 50 years in prison at the federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia, for her role in leading the attack on the United States Congress. The film explores Lolita’s life and patriotic thoughts through poetic language, intertwining her three most significant expressions: her fervent religiosity, her fight for justice from the perspective of a young woman and mother, and her patriotic courage to risk her freedom for the causes and values she firmly believed in. The film highlights the theme of national identity and the image of the fighting woman, who for many became the Mother of the Puerto Rican Nation.

(WINNER)

Original Film Title: Overnight

Director’s Name:Silja Minkkinen

Writer’s Name: Silja Minkkinen, Oona Linna

Producer: Katariina Männikkö, Silja Minkkinen

Country of Origin: Finland

Country of Filming: Finland

Language: Finnish

Runtime: 9 minutes

Film Description:

Yhdessä yössä (Overnight) is a love letter to the disappearing nature and wildlife around us. The film links together Finland’s threatened marshlands and a poem that refers to longing, heartache and the need to remember and conserve.

The main character’s emotional landscape changes color in the course of one day and reflects upon the surrounding nature, transitioning from despair to hope. To whom the poem’s voice is speaking remains a mystery, but the complexity of their relationship takes precedence before subjects.

Subtle references to climate change and the planet’s disappearing wildlife are interwoven within the imagery of forests filled with suffocating smoke, endangered marshlands, and of twigs, sand and soot rubbing against the girl’s body as if to penetrate humankind’s willful blindness. The film places a human in synthesis with nature; the girl’s emotions become parallel with nature’s cry for help, its request for connection. The film states that “… one day, the world’s beauty will be enough” yet the pressing question is left lingering in the air: but when?

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: The Infinity Room

Director’s Name: Richard Johnson, Neal Hartman

Writer’s Name: Richard Johnson, Neal Hartman

Producer: Richard Johnson, Neal Hartman

Country of Origin: Switzerland

Country of Filming: Switzerland

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 9 minutes

Film Description:

THE INFINITY ROOM is a unique dive into the world of CERN – European Organization for Nuclear research in Switzerland – made in the spirit of films like Baraka, Koyaanisqatsi, and 2001 a Space Odyssey.
A steam punk ode to science, an opera about a machine built by Primates to find their origins.
CERN is a rare and beautiful example of international cooperation, a hope for the human experiment in a world turned chaotic and tribal. This film follows a core team of pixel engineers, made in collaboration with Neal Hartman – CERN engineer of 20 years as his team upgrade the largest, most sophisticated particle detector in the world.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Hercules Recycled 2.0

Director’s Name: Don Moriarty, Greg Alt

Writer’s Name: Don Moriarty, Greg Alt

Producer: Don Moriarty

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Italy, United States

Language: English

Runtime: 27 minutes 48 seconds

Film Description:

In the depths of a secluded forest, two estranged protagonists reunite, concealing hidden truths from one another and perhaps even from themselves. As they confront their tangled past, the atmosphere grows increasingly tense. The man boasts of his achievements, while the woman questions the authenticity of their connection. As day fades into night, eerie rituals unfold, plunging the narrative into a surreal dimension.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Oranda

Director’s Name: Livan Garcia-Duquesne

Writer’s Name: Livan Garcia-Duquesne

Producer: Livan Garcia-Duquesne

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Country of Filming: United Kingdom

Language: English

Runtime: 27 minutes 48 seconds

Film Description:

In the depths of a secluded forest, two estranged protagonists reunite, concealing hidden truths from one another and perhaps even from themselves. As they confront their tangled past, the atmosphere grows increasingly tense. The man boasts of his achievements, while the woman questions the authenticity of their connection. As day fades into night, eerie rituals unfold, plunging the narrative into a surreal dimension.