Category: BEST STUDENT FILM – ARFF PARIS 2026

(WINNER)

Original Film Title: Middle Ground

Director’s Name: Maxime Heta

Writer’s Name: Maxime Heta

Producer: Maxime Heta

Country of Origin: Switzerland

Country of Filming: Switzerland

Language: Albanian, French

Runtime: 18 minutes 30 seconds

Film Description:

In Kosovo, although streets have names, they are rarely used. Their names have often changed since the end of the war, usually according to those in power. Today, residents mostly navigate using descriptions.
This project is born from this lack of fixed landmarks in the urban landscape. Blending two cultures, Swiss and Kosovar, it unfolds in a blurred, transitional space, much like these nameless streets: a middle ground.
Architecture becomes the guiding thread of a reflection in which the urban environment transforms into a mental labyrinth, a metaphor for the self and for identity.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Model 072

Director’s Name: Thomas Tierney

Writer’s Name: Thomas Tierney, Matthew Melton

Producer: Thomas Tierney

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 5 minutes

Film Description:

In a shadowy lab on the edge of civilization, a reclusive scientist repairs a damaged android with a human face and a fractured past. As memories are erased and identities rewritten, a hunter closes in—and the line between man and machine begins to blur.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Lands End

Director’s Name: Steve Peletz

Writer’s Name: Steve Peletz

Producer: Steve Peletz

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 9 minutes 2 seconds

Film Description:

Swimmers gather, plunge through the surf, and head West from China Beach where San Francisco’s Northern edge meets the Pacific Ocean, just outside the Golden Gate.

Taking a break from busy lives, they swim along the base of Lands End’s sheer rock cliffs, navigating wave-battered rocks covered with kelp, mussels, and harbor seals basking in the chilly gray fog.

Swimmers often experience the Pacific Ocean’s violent mood swings. Visitors sometimes swim through calm waters, but often fight strong currents, big surf, and the threat of hypothermia.

They prepare physically and psychologically for powerful ocean forces, yet these explorers find something healing in the untamed waters!

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: CONTIGO

Director’s Name: Rodrigo Enrique Perez

Writer’s Name: Rodrigo Enrique Perez, Tan Kitapli

Producer: Michaela Cowan, Hayley Kirk

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 11 minutes 27 seconds

Film Description:

CONTIGO follows a young woman (Jade) who returns to the site of a secret experiment in Venezuela to uncover the truth about what was done to her, only to face the man behind it all, who now stands in her way.