Category: Best Student Film – 2026 WSXA Barcelona

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Onward

Director’s Name: Sun Yuchen

Writer’s Name: Wei Shirui

Producer: Zhang Lu

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 14 minutes 52 seconds

Film Description:

Zhou Xiaoman was the sole caretaker of her mother, Lin Qiaoyun, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Trapped in the world of her late husband’s passing, Lin Qiaoyun was consumed by her desire for a sea burial and had filled their home with paper boats symbolizing farewell. Exhausted yet accommodating, Zhou Xiaoman repeatedly accompanied her mother to the sea to carry out an endless mourning ritual.
This was to be their final farewell at sea. Zhou Xiaoman had finally decided to take her mother south, away from their hometown, for better care. But when her mother stubbornly stuffed a paper boat into the suitcase, the last thread of Zhou Xiaoman’s composure snapped. Lin Qiaoyun, no longer recognizing her own daughter, left home alone.
Zhou Xiaoman found her by the shore. A paper boat her mother had set adrift lay stranded in the mud. Mistaking her daughter for a stranger, Lin Qiaoyun invited her to “set sail together.”
In the struggle between memory and oblivion, Zhou Xiaoman took the sweat-soaked paper boat and boarded that never-docking boat in her mother’s inner world.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Capturada

Director’s Name: Isabela Paiao

Writer’s Name: Ryan Rivera, Sophie Gould, Isabela Paiao

Producer: Sophie Gould

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English, Spanish

Runtime: 10 minutes

Film Description:

A grandmother, Alma, secretly explores a new relationship online, rediscovering her identity beyond the roles of mother and grandmother. When her hidden life collides with her family, Alma faces a transformative journey of self-love, desire, and liberation.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Break Up to Make Up

Director’s Name: Runnan Zhao

Writer’s Name: Runnan Zhao

Producer: Runnan Zhao

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 29 minutes

Film Description:

Zheng Xiwen was once a young woman who pursued an artistic and literary life but found herself forced to choose the stability of a corporate career at a critical juncture in her life. After being informed of her breakup, the structured routine of her days brought no sense of security; instead, it deepened her sense of disorientation. Quitting her uninspiring job, growing distant from her family, and grappling with unresolved feelings from a past relationship threw her life into turmoil.

By chance, she reunites with her former love, Chen Shen—a man who once shared her love for literature, dreamed of becoming a high achiever, but now runs a restaurant. Both are striving to find their own paths. Through their nuanced conversations and silences, Xiwen begins to reevaluate her choices and aspirations.

She gradually comes to realize that everyone carries their own “Kinkaku-ji”—a symbol of perfection and ideals. Yet perhaps it is only by relinquishing the obsession with unattainable perfection that one can rediscover their true path forward.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Florhood – Subtitulado

Director’s Name: Fiona Torres Moino

Writer’s Name: Fiona Torres Moino

Producer: Grace Danielian

Country of Origin: Argentina

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 15 minutes

Film Description:

Emma is a brilliant young lawyer who lives in the historic city of Pisa, in Italy. Faced with a challenging case that pushes her to the edge, she starts relying more and more on Eden, an AI assistant, and using ‘her’ for daily for recipes, lifestyle, and all in-house domotics. At first, Eden is just a tool. But day by day its presence begins to shape Emma’s decisions, relationships, and sense of self. Amongst professional pressure, emotional conflicts, and ethical dilemmas, Emma must ask herself a crucial question: is she the one making her own choices or is Eden taking over and shaping her life. A timely story that challenges the boundaries between human autonomy and the artificial world.