Category: Best Music Video – 2025 ARFF Paris

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Not Bad

Director’s Name: Zoe Peng

Writer’s Name: Zoe Peng

Producer: Zoe Peng

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Mandarin Chinese

Runtime: 45 minutes 41 seconds

Film Description:

The film follows the storyline of five songs from Jason Zhang’s album Not Bad, set in a future
world where humanity suffers backfire because of its over-reliance on technology. AI is all the
rage, stripping humans of their emotions and attempting to establish a cold, digital order. A
popular singer, A Jie, is deprived of memory and trapped in a repetitive time loop after resisting
the AI-controlled society. Lucy, A Jie‘s friend as well as an AI researcher, was once a fanatic
supporter of technology, but after realizing everything was out of control, she tried to make a
change, but to be assassinated. In an effort to redeem her past mistakes, Lucy uploads her
consciousness into a chip,using her remaining energy to awaken A Jie and helps him find the
“Land of Rebirth,” a place that carries the hope for humanity’s future.

Original Film Title: The Tasty Kings with Blondie Chaplin “Maybe I’m a Queen”

Director’s Name: Jacques Naudé

Writer’s Name: Andrew Morse

Producer: Chelsea Greenwood, Steve Cozzarelli, Lucas Carpenter, Mikalya Gamble, Evan Bauer

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 4 minutes 28 seconds

Film Description:

Short form film for “Maybe I’m a Queen, a key focus track from ‘Native Tongue,’ the critically-acclaimed album by The Tasty Kings with Blondie Chaplin. Directed by Jacques Naudé, the exquisitely-shot cinematic art-house clip features South African singer Blondie Chaplin, known for his recording and touring work with The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson and The Rolling Stones, and a standout cast of dreamers and doers that includes Bloc Agency LA artists/dancers Skyler Altman, Jai Robinson, Chloe Smith, Hunter Wayne Foster and Keera Kittles, who can be seen in Tate McRae‘s music video for “Revolving Door” (from her ‘So Close to What’ album) while also partaking in Doechii‘s show-stopping performance during this year’s Grammy Awards and Basement Jaxx‘s epic, hits-filled set at Coachella 2025.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: NAND – SOS

Director’s Name: Aleksandr Irinarkhov

Writer’s Name: Aleksandr Irinarkhov

Producer: Aleksandr Irinarkhov

Country of Origin: Germany

Country of Filming: Germany

Language: German

Runtime: 4 minutes 13 seconds

Film Description:

In a world where nature has retaliated against humanity’s destruction, mutants — half-human, half-plant beings — began to appear. Society rejected them, isolating them in “treatment” zones, while flowers were declared illegal. People caught possessing or transporting flowers faced persecution akin to drug charges. Meanwhile, among the followers of a flower cult, a myth emerged: a Messiah could be awakened through a ritual, one who would destroy technology, restore the natural world, and bring harmony back to Earth.

In the music video: four grim men in leather jackets are driving a young man dressed as a flower deep into the forest. It seems they plan to get rid of him. On a forest clearing, they pick up shovels, but suddenly rip off their jackets, revealing… bee-like bodies! They begin a ritualistic dance, pollinating the flower-like protagonist. With every move, the world starts to transform. Flowers sprout inside the car, break through asphalt, and bloom across the grass. The transformation accelerates as nature begins to consume everything…

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: All we get is life

Director’s Name: Jean-Christophe Groffe, Benjamin Hénon

Writer’s Name: Jean-Christophe Groffe, Benjamin Hénon

Producer: Le Jardin des Solutions

Country of Origin: France

Country of Filming: France

Language: English

Runtime: 6 minutes 20 seconds

Film Description:

Alone in a set reminiscent of the science fiction worlds of the 60s and 80s, a character intones seemingly unconnected texts, giving rise to unexpected associations of ideas. Gradually, a counterpoint is heard. An inner voice or a robotic presence? The music of John Cage, freely interpreted by the ensemble Thélème, invites to a meditation in sound and vision. Le Jardin des solutions develops a polished, poetic universe.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Ancient Lands and Lives-Above the Grand Canyon Rims

Director’s Name: Carol J. Amore

Writer’s Name: Carol J. Amore

Producer: Carol J. Amore

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 9 minutes

Film Description:

Ancient Lands & Lives- Above The Grand Canyon Rims is a high impact and fast-paced short Docu-music video that embraces Arizona’s Grand Canyon wildlife experience through versatile animal habitats and its resilient pinyon-juniper evergreen trees on the Canyon’s Rims. Its vast colorful canyon rock formations reveal layers in geological time, dramatic thunderstorms with rising cloud formations, dark night skies (Milky Way Galaxy visible) and sacred tribal lands.

The emmy-award-winning composer-electric violin performer for this music video, Mark Wood, original member of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, played his unique seven-stringed viper electric violin like a series of high-powered symphonic movements interpreting the Grand Canyon, portraying wildlife behaviors and reaching up into its ever-changing skies. His music inspires one’s spirit.

Elusive Grand Canyon predator families includes mountain lions, bobcats, wolves, coyotes, gray foxes and even birds of prey

( American eagle, Golden eagles, Red-tailed hawks, Peregrine falcons). Resident desert Bighorn sheep, mule deer and other wildlife are also part of the Canyon’s eco-system. These wildlife are often portrayed in Hopi stone wall petroglyphs thousands of years old.

In the Hopi culture, the animal Kachinas (Ka means “respect”, china means “spirit”) have been used as the introduction to Film Chapters within this Docu-music video to create an interpretative window into their world.

The Hopi craftsman carves each animal to represent its unique physical characteristics. Just like a compass each animal is viewed as a guardian to the North, South, East and West.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: A Dream In the Sahā World

Director’s Name: Sabrina REN

Writer’s Name: Sabrina REN

Producer: Sabrina REN

Country of Origin: Canada

Country of Filming: China, Mexico, United States

Language: English

Runtime: 9 minutes 30 seconds

Film Description:

A song based on my personal ayahuasca journeys and Tibetan Buddhist meditation study