Category: 2026 ARFF Barcelona

(WINNER)

Original Film Title: THE SOUND OF RUINS

Director’s Name: KRIS BART

Writer’s Name: KRIS BART

Producer:

Country of Origin: Italy

Country of Filming: Italy

Language: English

Runtime: 37 Pages

Film Description:

Amid the smoldering ruins of Kharkiv—shattered by bombs and despair—four fractured souls embark on an impossible mission: to find the missing mother of Misha, a neurodivergent boy who, despite being bullied for his difference, sees beauty where others see only ruin.

Olga, a nurse haunted by guilt, finds redemption in protecting Misha—becoming a symbolic mother in a world that has forgotten mercy. Mark, a jaded war reporter numbed by the horrors he’s witnessed, is forced to confront his own conscience and rediscover meaning through the lens he once used to distance himself. Alongside them stands Andrey, a soldier who dares to defy prejudice, proudly defending the right to love in the ashes of war.

Together, they cross apocalyptic landscapes and face excruciating moral choices, discovering that true survival isn’t merely about escaping death—but enduring the hardest fight of all: staying human in a world that no longer remembers how.

The pilot and the entire series are visually crafted by legendary Director of Photography Luca Bigazzi (The Great Beauty, The Young Pope, Il Divo), whose unmistakable style transforms destruction into poetry, memory into light—rendering every frame of The Sound of Apocalypse a haunting meditation on war, love, and resilience.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Clocks of the rise

Director’s Name:

Writer’s Name: Piyush Bharat Dhongade

Producer:

Country of Origin:

Country of Filming:

Language: English

Runtime: 47 Page

Film Description:

Amid two wars, the different cycles of an economy, and the resulting political chaos, a traumatized soldier and his quietly defiant wife strive to create, where there is destruction. They go through different struggles to finally understand that supporting each other is key. The script goes through 20th century Germany. From university to Verdun to recovery to surviving Nazi Germany. When Germany is crumbling, the couple welcome a child. The couple and their child become the beacon of hope for a new future.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: The Bait – Not another shark movie

Director’s Name:

Writer’s Name: Bernardo Barreto

Producer:

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English, Italian, Quechua, Spanish

Runtime: 115 Page

Film Description:

The Bait is a visceral survival thriller based on a true story. It follows João, a disillusioned real estate executive suffocating under the weight of his domineering family’s expectations. When his carefree friend Patrick invites him on a windsurfing trip to Búzios, João seizes the chance to reconnect with the ocean—and with himself. But a sudden shark attack leaves him critically injured, stranded miles from shore and fighting for his life.
Adrift between life and death, João struggles to survive while haunted by memories of lost love, a fractured family, and the betrayal that broke him. As hallucinations blur the boundaries between past and present, he is forced to confront the emotional wounds that have defined his identity. His ordeal becomes both brutal and transformative, stripping away the false self he built to please others.
When he finally reaches land, barely alive, João is no longer the man who entered the water. In the film’s poignant conclusion, he reclaims his dream of cultivating a pearl farm in Polynesia—living in harmony with nature and with the sharks that once nearly ended him.
A story of survival, redemption, and rebirth, The Bait explores how sometimes we must be broken in order to discover who we truly are.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Macho Picchu

Director’s Name:

Writer’s Name: Noah Greenspan

Producer:

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English, Italian, Quechua, Spanish

Runtime: 113 Page

Film Description:

Dr. Frank vows to climb Machu Picchu after his son is killed in Afghanistan and he suffers a major myocardial infarction. A feel-good story.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Roads Taken

Director’s Name:

Writer’s Name: C.J. Palmisano

Producer:

Country of Origin: Australia

Country of Filming: Australia

Language: English

Runtime: 113 Page

Film Description:

Told in reverse chronological order, ROADS TAKEN retraces the paths Sandy and Mercedes, Sandy’s doppelgänger, take as they wrestle fate, bad luck, and bad decisions in an attempt to rise above their lot in life.