Category: ENVISION AWARDS – ARFF Amsterdam 2026

Original Film Title: The Next Wrong Thing

Director’s Name: Ian Moore

Writer’s Name: Ian Moore, Isabella Petrosian

Producer: Ian Moore, Gustavo Padron, Spencer Davies, John Lynch

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 27 minutes

Film Description:

After finding out her father Ian has died, Sam is left with his beat up truck, an old motorcycle, and VHS tapes detailing a quest with her godfather Rob to find the treasure that Ian has hidden for her.

Original Film Title: Fractal Theory

Director’s Name: Gábor Klacsán

Writer’s Name: Gábor Klacsán, Andy ÍKrish

Producer: Gábor Klacsán

Country of Origin: Hungary

Country of Filming: Hungary

Language: English

Runtime: 17 minutes

Film Description:

Fractal Theory follows Daniel, a boy suffering from an Oedipus complex, who is searching for the philosophical meaning of the world and life. The philosophical interpretation of missing lines from Pope Rodrigo Borgia, Ernest Hemingway, and Archangel Gabriel becomes entangled with the story of his mother, whose songs have the power both to kill and to create. Daniel walks with his girlfriend, Sylvia, through a small Eastern European town’s streets. Though their walk covers only a few hundred meters, it spans centuries and infinity.

Daniel’s genius and suggestive personality blur the boundaries between surreal truth and believable falsehood. As he and Sylvia journey through the infinity of the world and of literature, Daniel’s inner universe reflects onto the outer universe, unveiling the paradox of human existence: while searching for the infinite in our minde, we find neither ourselves nor normality. How could we ever comprehend the incomprehensibility of existence, when even Schrödinger’s cat remains lost and unintelligible to us?

The film plays with the world within us through symbols, philosophical reflections, and paradoxical truths; it does not seek to explain but to provoke thought. the film was created by hungarian high school students in collaboration with a Hungarian filmmaker and Hollywood professionals, as the first film of a non-profit foundation.

Original Film Title: Bang voor de Angst

Director’s Name: Thomas Tobé

Writer’s Name: Thomas Tobé

Producer: Thomas Tobé

Country of Origin: Netherlands

Country of Filming: Netherlands

Language: Dutch

Runtime: 1 hour 18 minutes 34 seconds

Film Description:

Afraid of the Fear stays with three people living with obsessive-compulsive disorder, remaining present as anxiety and rituals quietly take over their everyday lives. Without explanation or commentary, the film observes how fear shapes their relationships, choices, and sense of time — and how, in moments of love, new life, and unexpected change, they find fragile forms of courage and connection.

Original Film Title: The Athletes

Director’s Name: Bryan Peter Downey

Writer’s Name: Bryan Peter Downey

Producer: Bryan Peter Downey

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 34 minutes 33 seconds

Film Description:

Spending 4 weeks filming and interviewing at a therapy surf camp in Montauk New York. FLOW is designed to teach kids with Down syndrome and Autism how to surf and get over their fears through faith in the teams assigned to each athlete. The surf students are called Athletes ranging from 5 to 30 years old and volunteers from the Montauk community who are the work force of the program also ranging from as young as 5 years old – seniors. The interviews are of the life guards, parents, pre teen kid volunteers, teen volunteers and seasoned pro surf instructors.

Original Film Title: Lagando Bo Neishi

Director’s Name: Semi Chahmi

Writer’s Name: Ephrayim Odor

Producer: Djis Pa Hari

Country of Origin: Aruba

Country of Filming: Aruba, Netherlands

Language: Dutch, English, Papiamento

Runtime: 27 minutes 21 seconds

Film Description:

Lagando Bo Neishi (Leaving the Nest) is a short documentary exploring the emotional, financial, and cultural challenges faced by Caribbean students—particularly from Aruba—who move to the Netherlands to pursue higher education.

Original Film Title: Monastic Life

Director’s Name: Ling Wang

Writer’s Name: Ling Wang

Producer: Ling Wang

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 1 hour 27 minutes 56 seconds

Film Description:

Monastic Life, fully funded by director Ling Wang, was filmed over 4 years inside Baita Temple in Chengdu, Sichuan—a women’s monastic community with a history of more than 1,700 years. Inside the temple, the ordained women follow a calm and steady daily rhythm—morning and evening practice, communal work, and quiet meditation. Rather than presenting monastic life as remote or mystical, the documentary shows how their spiritual practice is woven into simple, continuous routines.
During the extended period of filming, the director heard the female monastics talk candidly about life and death, about money, about everyday worries, and about why they chose the monastic path. Three senior female practitioners passed away over the course of filming and post-production. The awareness of their passing becomes a quiet backdrop for the documentary’s deeper reflection on Buddhist views of impermanence—how they look at aging and illness, how they face the limits of the body, and how they understand leaving ordinary life behind. These conversations form the core of the documentary.
The documentary uses no music and very little narration. Almost everything is heard as it happens: the wind in the courtyard, the bells, footsteps on stone, and the voices of the female monastics. This unobtrusive approach lets viewers ease into the rhythm of temple life, where questions about life and death.
Monastic Life is neither religious instruction nor abstract theory. It looks at birth, aging, sickness, and death through the everyday lives of women monastics. Using a quiet and restrained visual approach, the director offers a different way of seeing—one that relies not on explanation, but on watching how the weight and lightness of life gradually show themselves in the steadiness of daily practice.

Original Film Title: Growing Through

Director’s Name: Valeria Starovoit

Writer’s Name: Valeria Starovoit

Producer: Maria Charnaya

Country of Origin: Germany, Russian Federation

Country of Filming: Germany

Language: Russian

Runtime: 8 minutes 50 seconds

Film Description:

Filmed at 2000 fps, FUEL expands seconds across nine minutes. Through experimental audio-doc design, it questions the validity of memory and examines how modes of discipline and the past shape the way individuals form self and identity.

Original Film Title: FUEL

Director’s Name: David Fishel

Writer’s Name: David Fishel

Producer: David Fishel

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English, French

Runtime: 8 minutes 50 seconds

Film Description:

Filmed at 2000 fps, FUEL expands seconds across nine minutes. Through experimental audio-doc design, it questions the validity of memory and examines how modes of discipline and the past shape the way individuals form self and identity.