Category: BEST MUSIC VIDEO – ARFF PARIS 2026

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: fun 100 years ago > inject

Director’s Name: Kazuya Suwa

Writer’s Name: Kazuya Suwa

Producer: Kazuya Suwa

Country of Origin: Japan

Country of Filming: Japan

Language: English

Runtime: 1 minute 47 seconds

Film Description:

Set in Tokyo in 2126, where AI and neurotechnology have profoundly advanced, this music video follows a young person drifting through life and finding small joys, while exploring what remains essentially human in a life intertwined with AI and neurotechnology. Its music was generated entirely through AI using highly experimental settings that treat language as sound rather than meaning, distort pronunciation, and blur the boundaries between linguistic nuance and existing music genres, while carrying an echo of the hope once associated with Tokyo at the beginning of the 21st century.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Broken Wings

Director’s Name: Sima Galanti

Writer’s Name: Sima Galanti

Producer: Sima Galanti

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming : Israel, United States

Language: Arabic, English, Hebrew

Runtime: 4 minutes 48 seconds

Film Description:

Israeli-American singer, songwriter, producer, and director Sima Galanti announces the release of her new single, “Broken Wings,” available October 10, 2025, on all major streaming platforms. The song is a powerful rock collaboration featuring Palestinian singer and oud player Naser Musa and Kobi Farhi, frontman of the Israeli metal band Orphaned Land.

Blending rock with Middle Eastern influences, “Broken Wings” is performed in Hebrew, English, and Arabic, symbolizing a bridge between cultures and a shared desire for peace. The song was originally written for a documentary film that Galanti has been developing for several years. The song was the seed that sparked her journey back to Israel, where she confronted both the conflict and her own past. a project that was born from her deep wish to bridge divides, spark dialogue, and create healing through art and music.

“After October 7, the film project fell apart, and I felt as if all the air was taken out of me,” Galanti shares. “I needed to step back, reconnect with my heart, and focus on the music itself, which became a healing process of its own. ‘Broken Wings’ is the song that started this journey, and now feels like the right time to share it with the world.”

The music video for “Broken Wings” visually reflects the song’s emotional depth and message of unity amid pain and division. As Galanti explains, the release comes at a time when the world deeply needs reminders of human connection, compassion, and the transformative power of art.

“Broken Wings is not just a song, it’s my way of expressing the pain of a conflict that has been part of my entire life, while also offering a message of unity and love,” Galanti continues. “When there is so much hate, division, and fear, I believe it’s an artist’s role to remind us of our shared humanity.”

Through its lyrics and collaborations, Broken Wings carries both the weight of war and the light of possibility, reminding listeners that “only love will save us, make us whole.”

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Carry The Cross by Paracrona

Director’s Name: Ringo Christiaan Van Droffelaar, Anders Øvergaard

Writer’s Name: Ringo Chritiaan Van Droffelaar

Producer: Ringo Christiaan Van Droffelaar, Siri Valdman, Morten Rustad

Country of Origin: Norway

Country of Filming : Norway

Language: English

Runtime: 5 minutes 22 seconds

Film Description:

Some different burdens one have to carry…. Struggles of life that everybody is going through and the evilness that creates more imbalance of power and greed. The chess game of life.

(Audience Award Winner)

Original Film Title: DRUCKER

Director’s Name: Kyle Ruggiero

Writer’s Name: Kyle Ruggiero, Peter Drucker

Producer: Aiken Quach

Country of Origin: Canada

Country of Filming : Canada

Language: English

Runtime: 17 minutes 50 seconds

Film Description:

DRUCKER is an audiovisual experience that takes place in a “House of Memories”.
Shame, guilt, jealousy, and reluctant acceptance all living under the same roof.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: VERTIGO

Director’s Name: Sylvie KAY

Writer’s Name: Sylvie KAY

Producer: Sylvie KAY

Country of Origin: France

Country of Filming : France

Language: French

Runtime: 13 minutes 3 seconds

Film Description:

« To silence the words or say them, read them or write them,
find the balance of free words ».
Following her first two films SILK and SLY, the choreograph and director Sylvie Kay creates an « Hymn to Life » through a creative immersion in Jeremy Kay’s Art Work titled VERTIGO.

Sylvie Kay’s starting point and important reflexion was : « How to make this art work dance like a human, keeping a visual original aspect and treatment ? How to marry dance with painting telling a real « love story » of this « Woman Conductor » dropped in the texture of this art piece ?

In the solitude of this big rehearsing studio, huge black space, the dancer dares to open the doors… shadows of her soul just above her. This colorful resin painting enters slowly, lending her a hand, becoming friend, speaking the same langage with humor and clumsiness all along carried by the music.

The magic of this trio dance-music-painting brings a freedom of movement and expression ! The shapes are moving ! The vibrant colors chase the tension away ! The vibrating transparency of red and purple brings the dance to a powerful state of energy, and to a life of pleasure !

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: NEVER AGAIN

Director’s Name: Valérie de Montmollin

Writer’s Name: Valérie de Montmollin

Producer: Valérie de Montmollin

Country of Origin: France, Switzerland

Country of Filming : France, Switzerland

Language: French

Runtime: 3 minutes 47 seconds

Film Description:

“Plus jamais” deals with the violence I have experienced. I want to encourage women who are still in situations of severe abuse not to lose hope, and to seek help to find a way out—because it is possible to get out.
And as Madame Pelicot says: “The shame must change sides.”

(WINNER)

Original Film Title: The Taming of Soft Machines

Director’s Name: Christian Luoma

Writer’s Name: Christian Luoma

Producer: Christian Luoma

Country of Origin: Finland

Country of Filming : Finland

Language: English

Runtime: 3 minutes 22 seconds

Film Description:

A machine made to need. A body trained to give.

A visual hymn to submission, desire, and synthetic devotion.Inspired by the vampire cyborg folklore and the architecture of programmed love.

Where pleasure is protocol, obedience is worship and the line between wanting and being wanted is blurred or never existed.

“I don’t know who programmed the wanting.”

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Goodbye / Nevesoma

Director’s Name: Anastasia Bezhan

Writer’s Name: Anastasia Bezhan, Valeria Shlyapina, Nastiya Kai

Producer: Anastasia Bezhan, Daniil Kartashov

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming : Russian Federation

Language: English, Russian

Runtime: 2 minutes 22 seconds

Film Description:

“Goodbye” is a surreal visual poem about the quiet violence of self-transformation. Blending soft horror and mythological symbolism, the video follows the artist through slime-coated cocoons, sterile hospital corridors, animal totems, and haunting dreamscapes. It explores identity as something constantly shedding, splitting, and blooming — where beauty and decay coexist.
The final verse unfolds in a language tied to earth, memory, and myth — a soft echo of my Slavic heritage.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: LOSING ACE

Director’s Name: SALLY DORA Clack-Manning

Writer’s Name: SALLY DORA Clack-Manning

Producer: SALLY DORA Clack-Manning, DAVID PAUL MANNING

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Country of Filming: United Kingdom

Language: English

Runtime: 4 minutes 10 seconds

Film Description:

Confessional rap song – Dark love story rap “As Rapper Shampagne, I want everyone to know that ‘Losing Ace’ comes straight from real life. I met him in Miami—cool as ice in a Lamborghini, neon lights bouncing off his shades—and in that moment I felt the raw pulse of danger and desire. That encounter lit the spark for this track; his story demanded to be told.”On her deathbed in Miami, a woman recounts the fatal allure of a Lamborghini-driving gangster who stole her heart. In a hushed, slow-burn narrative rap, she recalls the rush of first love, the sting of betrayal, and the moment a gun pressed to her temple. Each verse peels back layers of passion and violence—late-night fights, whispered apologies, and the intoxicating thrill of danger. As blood paints her final world in vivid colour, she confronts the question that haunts her last breath: why did she love someone who only knew how to break her?“ this is a slow burn narrative rap Miami love gone wrong”

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Muggle

Director’s Name: Zoe Peng

Writer’s Name: Lianjia Cheng, Wenxin Zhang

Producer: Xinxuan Zhou

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 8 minutes 24 seconds

Film Description:

The MV Muggle unfolds in a fictional “Truth Auction House,” depicting an absurd world shrouded in illusions and collective euphoria. The audience, like spellbound “Muggles,” frantically bid for so-called “rare truths.” At the auction, Angela encounters Mr. X, who encourages her to join the farce. She declares a newspaper to be an “invisibility cloak,” winning the crowd’s adoration. Later, Mr. X drunkenly jokes about “stealing the moon,” which is soon sensationalized by rumor-fueled masses. Branded the “Moon Thief,” he becomes a captive exhibit at the auction. Realizing she can no longer dance with these Muggles, Angela smashes the absurd artifacts in the Truth Auction House and rescues Mr. X. In the finale, the two stand before a floor-to-ceiling window, pressing a button that triggers the collapse of the distorted world outside.