Category: BEST SHORT FILM – ARFF BERLIN 2026

Original Film Title: The Last Sun

Director’s Name: Nigel Canepa, Orlando Charvetto

Writer’s Name: Simon Reynold, Lynn Hardy, Nigel Canepa

Producer: Lynn Hardy

Country of Origin: Gibraltar

Country of Filming: Gibraltar

Language: English

Runtime: 19 minutes 51 seconds

Film Description:

In a future where the sun is blocked and humanity is forced underground, Gibraltar holds the last light. Lena, a former scientist, strives to bring back the sun. One day, a stranger arrives with ancient knowledge and new hope.

Original Film Title: Blick Ohne Worte

Director’s Name: Art Davis

Writer’s Name: Karwan Mohammed

Producer: Karwan Mohammed

Country of Origin: Germany

Country of Filming: Germany

Language: German

Runtime: 8 minutes 19 seconds

Film Description:

Blick Ohne Worte is a short film about, family, loyalty, and betrayal. At its center is a man whose trust is broken by a close family member. Caught between intimacy and suspicion, the film explores how betrayal within the family can lead to irreversible consequences.

Original Film Title: J.J.

Director’s Name: Adam Dietrich, Elliott Gilbert

Writer’s Name: Paula Goldberg

Producer: Anne Beyer

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 14 minutes 40 seconds

Film Description:

We follow the foster parents Jahan and Kiersten Bakshi as they are attending their foster son’s hearing. The court setting is the central focus, as witnesses and the social service department are fighting for the removal of parental rights to keep J.J. safe from his mentally ill mother.

Original Film Title: Ruby

Director’s Name: Charlotte Bonn

Writer’s Name: Charlotte Bonn

Producer: Charlotte Bonn

Country of Origin: Austria, United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 8 minutes 13 seconds

Film Description:

In the quiet hours before dawn, a grieving Los Angeles scavenger drives through empty streets with a secret on his passenger seat: a human heart he found discarded in an alley. As memories of his late sister surface, Nick struggles with guilt, loneliness, and the question of whether he is capable of goodness at all. Moving between past and present, Ruby unfolds as an intimate meditation on grief, morality, and the strange tenderness that can emerge from unsettling choices. In laying the heart to rest, Nick confronts the thin line between villainy and compassion—and discovers that meaning can be found in even the smallest acts of care.