Category: Best Experimental Film – 2026 ARFF Barcelona

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: No horses on Mars

Director’s Name: Bea de Visser

Writer’s Name: Bea de Visser

Producer: Bea de Visser

Country of Origin: Netherlands

Country of Filming: Netherlands

Language: English

Runtime: 14 minutes 54 seconds

Film Description:

We experience a trailer ride on the highway and wake up from anesthesia in a veterinary clinic. ‘No horses on Mars’ is practically a road film, whose POV’s from the horse is the most effective element of the film. The horse appears as the galloping mind that resides in all domesticated horses. The human being is introduced as a screen viewer who follows the horse, wants to measure, records and knows her as an object. Ultimately, from the human perspective in the film, there seems to be a glimmer of recognition for the individuality of the horse.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Human-Cannabis III: Tracing Green

Director’s Name: Arthur Liou

Writer’s Name: Arthur Liou

Producer: Arthur Liou

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Thailand

Language:

Runtime: 13 minutes 30 seconds

Film Description:

The experimental short film “Chasing Green” is the final chapter of the Human-Cannabis trilogy. Following the prehistoric and ancient settings of the first two installments, this piece adopts a surreal documentary approach to explore the many contemporary dimensions of cannabis. Filmed across India, Thailand, the Netherlands, and the U.S. state of Colorado, it presents the plant’s shifting identity within different cultural, economic, and scientific contexts.

The work blends real-world footage with AI-generated imagery to create imaginative interpretations. Through an observational shooting style grounded in reality and a nonlinear narrative that weaves between realism, metaphor, and abstraction, the film examines cannabis’s multifaceted roles, from ancient Indian religious rituals to modern medical applications in Thailand, as well as the global issues of misuse, while reflecting on the enduring mystery of this age-old plant.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Afghanistan

Director’s Name: Farid Rahimi

Writer’s Name: Farid Rahimi

Producer: Marta Tagliavia

Country of Origin: Italy

Country of Filming: Australia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Turkey, United States

Language: English, German

Runtime: 1 hour 13 minutes

Film Description:

The movie stems from long-term research in which the artist reconnects with people and memories tied to the country of his father’s homeland, Afghanistan. Through a series of journeys, meetings and conversations, Rahimi reconstructs a geographical and emotional map of this network of contacts, following an itinerary that extends from Italy and Germany to the United States, Australia and Japan. By traversing vast physical, and emotional distances, Rahimi has embarked on a three-month journey around four continents to piece together, to confront and reconstruct, his fragmented identity divided between distant family ties and his sense of belonging to a country he has never visited: Afghanistan. This reflection, originating from a personal need, extends to explore the universal concept of diaspora and the constant renegotiation of personal identity that originates from that.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Sands of time

Director’s Name: Kevin Wang

Writer’s Name: Kevin Wang

Producer: Kevin Wang

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 3 minutes

Film Description:

As you came to this universe, hourglass started the count down, go experience your life, be the person you want to be remembered before the hourglass is completed.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Pig Milk

Director’s Name: Evi Minou

Writer’s Name: Evi Minou

Producer: Eleni Tsolakidou, Artemis Papamihali Zouvelou,

Country of Origin: Greece

Country of Filming: Greece

Language: Greek (Modern)

Runtime: 20 minutes 14 seconds

Film Description:

Pig Milk is an experimental short exploring queer trauma, identity, and cyclical violence through a reinterpretation of The Three Little Pigs. Set in a distorted urban reality, the film follows three genderless beings—named Fear, Paranoia, and Obsession—who live under the constant threat of the Wolf and their own “pain”. They begin to suffer and uncontrollably vomit milk until a witch tells them they will soon die to be reborn. The film is dedicated to the queer activist Zak Kostopoulos, who was murdered in public in 2018—a symbol of systemic violence against queer bodies.

Through multi-sensory discomfort, it aims to embody the internal divisions and existential loops of queer existence and trans bodies. The viewer is invited to react on the overwhelming olfactory triggers of their own memory.

This is a film about what it means to live as “other” in a hostile world—and how pain, even in silence, becomes political.

(WINNER)

Original Film Title: Everything Comes to Harm

Director’s Name: Max Rommel

Writer’s Name: Max Rommel

Producer: Max Rommel, Enece Film

Country of Origin: Italy

Country of Filming: Italy

Language: Italian

Runtime: 60 minutes

Film Description:

Bruno, a solitary man living in a prefab home in the remote mountains of Friuli, spends his days monitoring a nearby dam and hunting deer for survival. His life of quiet routine is upended when he receives a call from Germany: his estranged brother has died, leaving behind a teenage daughter, Tecla. With no one else to care for her, Bruno becomes her reluctant guardian. Mistrustful and wounded by their pasts, the two slowly build a fragile connection. As Tecla adapts to mountain life, she finds moments of joy with new friends and a horse she deeply bonds with. But when the horse is unexpectedly sold, her emotional turmoil escalates. On a bleak winter day, overwhelmed by grief and confusion, Tecla takes Bruno’s rifle and retreats into the stable — seeking solace, or perhaps an end, as the snow falls silently outside.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: 1（International version）

Director’s Name: Guolin Pang

Writer’s Name: Guolin Pang

Producer: Guolin Pang

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language:

Runtime: 6 minutes 21 seconds

Film Description:

The short film focuses on the plot of the killer mutilating innocent people, showing the inner world of the character of the killer. At the same time, the short film also incorporates a rich emotional element, in which the meaning is deep and intriguing, making the whole story more engaging.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: 17 DAYS OF NOVEMBER

Director’s Name: VALENTÍ FIGUERES JORGE

Writer’s Name: VALENTÍ FIGUERES JORGE, HELENA SÁNCHEZ BEL

Producer: VALENTÍ FIGUERES JORGE

Country of Origin: Spain

Country of Filming: Spain

Language: Catalan, Spanish

Runtime: 2 hours 4 minutes 46 seconds

Film Description:

Juan García Oliver and José Antonio Primo de Rivera never met face to face, until today… in the Purgatory of History.

This is the story of a Waiter and a Marquis.

17 DAYS OF NOVEMBER narrates the moment where two vital trajectories intersect and lead to a tragic outcome: the execution of José Antonio Primo de Rivera on November 20th, 1936.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: TIDAL

Director’s Name: Juliane Ebner

Writer’s Name: Juliane Ebner

Producer: Juliane Ebner

Country of Origin: Germany

Country of Filming: Germany

Language: German

Runtime: 12 minutes

Film Description:

Based on hundreds of watercolour paintings, this animated short film tells a story of siblings and life.
The painter Käthe Ebner came from the Baltic Sea. Five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, she died in an accident in Berlin. She stood for a new voice in East German art.
TIDAL/FLUTEN is a personal search for traces between sea and metropolis, this world and beyond. Through memory, past and present are intertwined.
A poem- film about sisters.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: PAPOTA

Director’s Name: Martín Piroyansky

Writer’s Name: Martín Piroyansky, Fernando Echegaray

Producer: Chino Fernández, Federico Ameglio, Lula Meliche, Pío Filgueira Risso, Rafa Arcuate

Country of Origin: Argentina

Country of Filming: Uruguay

Language: Spanish

Runtime: 16 minutes 40 seconds

Film Description:

In parallel to the launch of their new EP, CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso present a short film directed by Martin Piroyansky and with the special participation of Martín Bossi. Through a visually innovative proposal, the film exposes the pressures of the music industry and the impact of success of the artistic identity.

After their Tiny Desk went viral on a global level, the duo captured the attention of Gymbaland, an influential music rep who promises to take their career to the next level and get them a Latin Chaddy. However, the road to stardom has a price. We see them get trapped between the industry’s expectations and imposter syndrome as the artists begin to modify their image and behavior to fit into hegemonic standards.

With a tone that oscillates between humor and criticism, the short film reflects a fight between authenticity and fame, exploring how external demands can fracture the strongest ties. The story reaches a climax when the relationship between both gets strained, not only placing in doubt their career but in their friendship as well.

In the end, CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso find in their bond the key to resist to the industry’s impositions, reaffirming their essence and leaving a reflection about what success truly signifies.