Category: Best Short Film – 2026 WSXA Barcelona

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Ilyukha’s Coffin Wouldn’t Open. Thank God

Director’s Name: Alexandra Sher

Writer’s Name: Alexandra Sher

Producer: Alexandra Sher

Country of Origin: Israel

Country of Filming: Israel

Language: Russian

Runtime: 29 minutes 59 seconds

Film Description:

When the seven people closest to Ilyukha come to his funeral to say goodbye, they discover that his coffin is closed, and each of them has their own version of how the deceased met his end

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: DINA

Director’s Name: Maria Lychko

Writer’s Name: Tetiana Kovalchuk

Producer: Savvas Baltzis

Country of Origin: Cyprus

Country of Filming: Cyprus

Language: English

Runtime: 27 minutes 56 seconds

Film Description:

Over the course of three summer days, Dina — a small-town girl longing for freedom — is drawn into a dangerous web of desire, control, and rebellion.
Her encounter with a charming but volatile young man forces her to confront her father’s dominance and the generational wounds that shape her world.

Inspired by a biblical parable, Dina is a story about inheritance and choice — about reaching the edge of cruelty and deciding whether to perpetuate it or break the cycle.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: The Pianist

Director’s Name: Jan Wang

Writer’s Name: Jan Wang

Producer: Jan Wang

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 13 minutes 41 seconds

Film Description:

Do you show up in other people’s stories when you access them through them?

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: BARRAGE

Director’s Name: Emanuele Filiberto D’Andrea

Writer’s Name: Emanuele Filiberto D’Andrea

Producer: Sean Manuel Valdo, Fabio Mauro Angeli

Country of Origin: Italy

Country of Filming: Italy

Language: Italian

Runtime: 42 minutes 50 seconds

Film Description:

The red thread linking Thailand and 1980s Colombia is formed by the blood spilled by bullets. Between past and present, Kitt will face difficult choices to survive, but perhaps in the smoke of battle he will find a family.

(WINNER)

Original Film Title: Dov’è che ci siamo già visti?

Director’s Name: Claudio Piccolotto, Gemma Iuliano

Writer’s Name: Claudio Piccolotto, Gemma Iuliano

Producer: Roberto Imbriale, Cristina Bianconi, Claudio Greg Gregori

Country of Origin: Italy

Country of Filming: Italy

Language: Italian

Runtime: 15 minutes

Film Description:

Arturo, a seventy-four-year-old junk dealer who has spent his life repairing broken things, discovers he is gravely ill. His adult children, Anna and Ernesto, try to find a way to care for him, eventually deciding — reluctantly — to bring him back to live with his former wife, Miranda.
But Miranda has Alzheimer’s and no longer remembers him. To avoid confusing her, Arturo must pretend to be a distant cousin in need of a place to stay.
Living under the same roof after thirty years apart, the two move through a strange, suspended time. In the rhythm of their shared days — a breakfast, a shadow in the corridor, a song from the past — something subtle shifts. Memory flickers like light through dust, and forgotten tenderness finds its way back.
Through the lens of illness and aging, “Beyond memory” becomes a meditation on love, time, and identity. The story blurs the line between what is remembered and what is imagined, between what once was and what could have been.
Arturo comes to understand that not everything broken can be repaired — yet, by staying close to Miranda, he discovers that love itself can offer a quiet form of redemption.
Blending realism and poetry, the film invites us to look at memory not as something that fades, but as something that moves — fragile, luminous, alive.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Our Long Goodbye

Director’s Name: Dave Beamish

Writer’s Name: Dave Beamish

Producer: Dave Beamish, Erin Morgan, Christina McInulty, Sarah Angelle, Grace Chin

Country of Origin: Canada

Country of Filming: Canada

Language: English

Runtime: 12 minutes 50 seconds

Film Description:

A struggling musician also plays caregiver to his father with dementia—each night awakening lost memories with an old song.

(AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER)

Original Film Title: One Last Show in Taghmon

Director’s Name: Alan Walsh

Writer’s Name: Alan Walsh

Producer: Paddy McCarney, Jim Sheridan

Country of Origin: Ireland

Country of Filming: Ireland

Language: English

Runtime: 22 minutes 52 seconds

Film Description:

One Last Show in Taghmon is a true Story. It follows three stuntmen as they embark on their final stunt show together. Among them are John, Mike, and Frankie, clinging to the edge of obscurity. In 1982, in a small rural village, These threee stuntmen, down on their luck and having never made it into the big league, embark on a journey to the village of Taghmon to perform One Last Show. A decision that changes their lives forever.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: AI’s Silent Omissions

Director’s Name: Lenny Maréchal

Writer’s Name: Lenny Maréchal

Producer: Lenny Maréchal

Country of Origin: France

Country of Filming: France

Language: French

Runtime: 45 minutes

Film Description:

As a heat wave devastates the country, a residence for elderly people finds itself cut off from the world, subjected to brutal water rationing. The director, Phil, imposes an authoritarian regime where water distribution becomes an instrument of power. Josephine, 82 years old, a former activist, refuses to submit. In secret, she rallies other residents for a sabotage operation.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: AI’s Silent Omissions

Director’s Name: Nozomu Kubota

Writer’s Name: Nozomu Kubota

Producer: Nozomu Kubota

Country of Origin: Japan

Country of Filming: Japan

Language: Japanese

Runtime: 26 minutes 59 seconds

Film Description:

When generating images using AI, many people discard images that do not depict five fingers, considering them as defective.
I attempted to interview someone with ectrodactyly, a condition in which the hand has a different number or arrangement of fingers.

When generating images using AI, many people discard images that do not depict five fingers, considering them as defective. AI engineers, too, devote their programming skills, massive GPU power, and electricity to advancing AI so that it can accurately generate five-fingered hands. However, in this pursuit of “progress,” the lives of minorities—such as those with three fingers or polydactyly—are completely overlooked and effectively erased in the shadow of technological evolution.
In this film, an AI engineer conducts interviews with parents of children with cleft hand, individuals affected by it, and medical professionals. Through these conversations, the engineer gradually exposes his own implicit assumptions. This work quietly questions the essential aspects of human existence that are being left behind in an AI-driven society.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Fireprayer

Director’s Name: Yuexiang LIN

Writer’s Name: Yuexiang LIN

Producer: Mingxian YANG

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 29 minutes

Film Description:

In a future where artificial humans (AI humans) are expected to acquire the memories of the deceased to achieve rebirth of individuals. Although the physical technology for creating artificial humans has become highly sophisticated, the technology for true human emotions remains an unsolved challenge. Wan and Quan are pioneering researchers of artificial humans and also a couple. During their research, Wan unfortunately loses her life due to experimental backlash, while Quan develops a serious illness. On his deathbed, Quan develops a breakthrough insight from Wan’s death—by invading and integrating the memories of individuals within the deceased’s relationship network, a complete image of the deceased can be created. Through this method, Quan successfully creates an artificial version of Wan, just as his own life comes to an end. Due to multiple test subject deaths caused by the experiment, the research is terminated and sealed. The artificial Wan, unaware of the truth, attempts to recreate the experimental steps to perfect an artificial version of Quan, only to discover that her own creation was built upon the deaths of countless innocent people. Through the invasion of multiple test subjects during the experiment, Quan’s consciousness gradually grows stronger, using the bodies of test subjects to converse with Wan and guide her to complete the final steps. Disagreeing with Quan’s view that “one’s own life is more important than others,” the artificial Wan chooses to erase both Quan’s and her own consciousness, allowing life and death to once again become an unsolvable mystery.