Category: BEST FIRST TIME FILMMAKER – 2025 WSXA AMSTERDAM

(Winner)

Original Film Title: Cracks in Time

Director’s Name: Kiyono Sakashita

Writer’s Name: Kiyono Sakashita

Producer: Kiyono Sakashita

Country of Origin: Switzerland

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 49 minutes 55 seconds

Film Description:

Cracks in Time is a 50-minute documentary composed of six interwoven short films, each reflecting the creative universe of a Chinese female artist aged from her 30s to 60s. Set against a backdrop of subtle yet seismic shifts in contemporary Chinese society, the film explores how the pandemic acted as a rupture—amplifying decades of personal memory, bodily perception, and emotional resilience.

Rather than tracing a chronological arc, the film becomes a visual meditation on fracture and continuity, unfolding through diverse materials: paintings, textiles, porcelain shards, and video archives. Each chapter adapts a distinct cinematic language, mirroring the artist’s own aesthetics—from static tableaus to handheld intimacy, from documentary realism to poetic abstraction.

Together, these six portraits form a collective image of a woman living on the land of China—steadfast, tender, and alert to time’s quiet turbulence. Cracks in Time is both personal and collective, revealing how individual creativity becomes a vessel of endurance and reflection amid social transformation.

This work marks the directorial debut of Sakashita Kiyono, who brings to the screen a curatorial sensibility shaped by years of cross-cultural engagement in China, Japan, and Europe.

(Finalist)

Original Film Title: Condylura Cristata

Director’s Name: Fariz Babayev

Writer’s Name: Fariz Babayev

Producer: Adil Babayev

Country of Origin: France

Country of Filming: France

Language: French

Runtime: 12 minutes 23 seconds

Film Description:

In a twilight space between dream and memory, Félix wanders through the forests of his mind, haunted by a past encounter and the echo of a mysterious star-nosed mole. “Condylura cristata” is a visual poem where silence speaks louder than dialogue, and absence takes form. As Félix drifts from reality, the boundaries between man, animal and memory dissolve, leaving behind fragments of a boy searching for meaning in a fractured world.

(Finalist)

Original Film Title: Blood On The Saddle

Director’s Name: Mike E. Lesovsky

Writer’s Name: Mike E. Lesovsky

Producer: Mike E. Lesovsky

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 31 minutes

Film Description:

If Powell Peralta’s 80s classic skateboarding film. The Search For Animal Chin and the iconic film Spinal Tap had a baby together, this film would be the result. Cameras first started rolling on this film in 2002 and ended in 2025. A short film that took over 20 years to make. Go on tour with a pro skateboarder led country death metal band and a young filmmaker fresh out of film school. It’s an intense ride and not everybody gets to make it out alive.

(Envision Award Winner)

Original Film Title: The Cycle

Director’s Name: Sara Hakam Musa

Writer’s Name: Sara Hakam Musa

Producer: Sarah Babar

Country of Origin: Jordan

Country of Filming: Turkey

Language: Urdu

Runtime: 8 minutes 48 seconds

Film Description:

The Cycle is a haunting psychological drama that delves into the inner turmoil of Lila, a 21-year-old fashion student caught in the quiet violence of an eating disorder. Beneath the surface of her structured daily life, early mornings, creative deadlines, workouts, and brief phone calls with her mother, lies a suffocating pattern of control, obsession, and self-destruction.

Torn between the demands of her art and the unattainable ideals plastered across the pages of her sketchbooks, Lila spirals into a repetitive routine marked by silent meals, compulsive exercise, and midnight binges that end in shame and emptiness. The film intimately captures her isolated world through stark visuals, subtle sounds, and an unspoken desperation for relief.

Set in the heart of Istanbul, The Cycle paints a visceral portrait of mental health and identity, culminating in a chilling loop: the same alarm, the same struggle, the same day, restarting once again.