Category: ARFF BERLIN 2026

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Ruby – dir. Charlotte Bonn

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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.

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The Defiant – dir. Ron Weisberg

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Original Film Title: The Defiant

Director’s Name: Ron Weisberg

Writer’s Name: Ann Carter

Producer: Ron Weisberg, Ann Carter, Brent Peterson

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 10 minutes 56 seconds

Film Description:

A mother and son run a voting software company that gets infiltrated by the FBI, and a white supremacist group, the White Hand. She will do nearly anything to save her son.

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Bulletproof Baby – dir. Chris Benner

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Original Film Title: Bulletproof Baby

Director’s Name: Chris Benner

Writer’s Name: Chris Benner

Producer: Chris Benner, Jennifer Trainer

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 21 minutes 30 seconds

Film Description:

On the eve of the apocalypse, three friends host a party that turns into a reckless, soul-baring disaster. As the night unravels, relationships crack and reality sets in. Before the world ends, they’ll have to survive each other—and the party—first.

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ENESCU, skinned alive – dir. Toma Enache

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Original Film Title: ENESCU, skinned alive

Director’s Name: Toma Enache

Writer’s Name: Toma Enache

Producer: Toma Enache

Country of Origin: Romania

Country of Filming: Romania

Language: Romanian

Runtime: 2 hours

Film Description:

George Enescu, a brilliant composer and violinist, is at the peak of his career and wants to compose an opera. He falls in love with a princess, Maruca, who inspires and challenges him. She is fascinated by Enescu and his music, she loves him passionately, but has a duty towards her husband and her two children. Destiny will release her from the chains of marriage, but will that be enough for the genius and the princess to live happily ever after? What about the opera? Will he ever compose it?

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JAMEELA – dir. Mina JafriMalik & Zainab (Izzy) Malik

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Original Film Title: Whispers in the Cloud

Director’s Name: Chuanfa Wan

Writer’s Name: Chuanfa Wan

Producer: Yu Zhang, Tianxiang Zhong

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes 54 seconds

Film Description:

This is an art genre film. Three strangers, two men, and one woman,all struggling in life, receive the same order to travel to an ancient village in search of an extinct “death ritual” known as “cloud burial”. During their search, their bond grows stronger. However, at this juncture, they simultaneously receive another order, instructing them to turn against each other and fight to the death, with only the sole survivor earning a substantial reward. Faced with life and death, they ultimately realize that what they were searching for was their own “death ritual”…

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Whispers in the Cloud – dir. Chuanfa Wan

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Original Film Title: Whispers in the Cloud

Director’s Name: Chuanfa Wan

Writer’s Name: Chuanfa Wan

Producer: Yu Zhang, Tianxiang Zhong

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes 54 seconds

Film Description:

This is an art genre film. Three strangers, two men, and one woman,all struggling in life, receive the same order to travel to an ancient village in search of an extinct “death ritual” known as “cloud burial”. During their search, their bond grows stronger. However, at this juncture, they simultaneously receive another order, instructing them to turn against each other and fight to the death, with only the sole survivor earning a substantial reward. Faced with life and death, they ultimately realize that what they were searching for was their own “death ritual”…

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The Forgotten Women – dir. Ivana Ivkovic

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Original Film Title: The Forgotten Women

Director’s Name: Ivana Ivkovic

Writer’s Name: Ivana Ivkovic

Producer: Ivana Ivkovic, Matthew Kohnen

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, United States

Language: Bosnian, English

Runtime: 1 hour 18 minutes 30 seconds

Film Description:

The Forgotten Women follows Bakira – rape camp survivor, activist, and founder of Women Victims of War – as she continues her pursuit of justice decades after the Bosnian war. Narrated by the filmmaker, who first encountered these testimonies as a college student during the conflict, the film revisits survivors, confronts genocide through sexual violence, and bears witness to resilience, memory, and accountability.

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Todd & The Toad – dir. Julia Mücke

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Original Film Title: Todd & The Toad

Director’s Name: Julia Mücke

Writer’s Name: Julia Mücke

Producer: Katharina Kümmel

Country of Origin: Germany

Country of Filming: Germany

Language: English

Runtime: 12 minutes 6 seconds

Film Description:

Anxious, awkward, and terminally avoidant, Todd is a man paralyzed by social anxiety. When pressure mounts from Polly—a girl he’s been messaging online—to finally meet in person, Todd spirals into neurotic panic. To cope with this, he find’s a hint in the darknet, that takes him to lick a mysterious toad… only to awaken in a bizarre therapy session with Juan Carlos (aka JC)—a charismatic, hallucination-induced psychologist claiming to be part of Todd’s “corrective experience.”
What unfolds is a surreal, fast-paced inner journey where JC challenges Todd’s deep-seated fears and avoidance tactics, pushing him toward emotional truth, self-awareness, and connection. From psychedelic lessons on vulnerability to hilarious miscommunications, Todd must face the terrifying possibility that love is worth the risk—just before everything nearly goes off the rails.
With quirky humor, sharp dialogue, and an unexpected dose of heart, Todd & The Toad is a comedy about mental health, romantic anxiety, and the ridiculous but real steps we take toward becoming braver versions of ourselves.

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Boy Forgotten – dir. Sofia Botero Saffon

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Original Film Title: Boy Forgotten

Director’s Name: Sofia Botero Saffon

Writer’s Name: Sofia Botero Saffon

Producer: Alejandro Ogaz Rodriguez

Country of Origin: Canada

Country of Filming: Canada

Language: English

Runtime: 14 minutes 40 seconds

Film Description:

A twelve year old forgotten by his mother, battles between chasing after the woman who abandoned him, or accepting the family of outcasts he gained after.

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I N T U I T I O N – dir. Joshua Longfellow Wright

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Original Film Title: I N T U I T I O N

Director’s Name: Joshua Longfellow Wright

Writer’s Name: Joshua Longfellow Wright

Producer: Joshua Longfellow Wright

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 22 minutes 26 seconds

Film Description:

Exhausted after a long shift, an emergency room doctor dismisses a growing sense of unease and enters a massage parlor on her drive home. As subtle warning signs give way to a frightening reality, she must trust her instincts to escape a dangerous situation. Intuition is a tense psychological thriller that explores intuition, vulnerability, and the hidden dangers that can exist in ordinary places.