Agnosia – dir. James Autery

(FINALIST)

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Original Film Title: Agnosia

Director’s Name: James Autery

Writer’s Name: James Autery

Producer: James Autery

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 28 minutes 16 seconds

Film Description:

Neva was born blind but has a surgery to see for the first time. She finds the experience difficult and confusing but is guided by her surgeon and psychologist. She finds great joy in experiencing color and slowly begins to engage with her new sense. Based on real case studies, Agnosia is a first-person visual interpretation of what it might look like to see for the first time.

The Bird – dir. Mikyoung Soon

(HONORABLE MENTION)

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Original Film Title: The Bird

Director’s Name: Mikyoung Soon

Writer’s Name: Mikyoung Soon

Producer: Hyungoo Jeon

Country of Origin: South Korea

Country of Filming: South Korea

Language: Korean

Runtime: 19 minutes 6 seconds

Film Description:

Eo-jin, who lives as a hikikomori to avoid the virus, sees a bird on the roof of her neighbor’s house and wonders if there is a bird on the roof of her own house. Eo-jin decides to go outside the house and take a look.

Director’s Cut – dir. Alvaro José Cogollos, Juanita Santafe

(FINALIST)

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Original Film Title: Director’s Cut

Director’s Name: Alvaro José Cogollos, Juanita Santafe

Writer’s Name: Alvaro José Cogollos, Juanita Santafe

Producer: Alvaro José Cogollos

Country of Origin: Colombia

Country of Filming: United States

Language: Spanish

Runtime: 6 minutes 4 seconds

Film Description:

A choice between two lives: the calm, slow pace of peace or the exciting, relentless scream of the city.

A young couple in New York City ponders the future of their relationship. Under the camera’s gaze, this couple debates living together in New York.

VENTRICULARITIES – dir. Reza John Monahan

(FINALIST)

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Original Film Title: VENTRICULARITIES

Director’s Name: Reza John Monahan

Writer’s Name: Reza John Monahan

Producer: Reza John Monahan

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Japan

Language:

Runtime: 12 minutes 36 seconds

Film Description:

Shot in Japan amidst the fading sakura bloom of 2023, “VENTRICULARITIES” is a structuralist reflection on the transient interlace of existence.

Merging the organic delicacy of spinning petals with the industrial splendor of vanishing trains and shifting architectures, the film explores dissonance/resonance across the natural and constructed.

At once immaterial and visceral, the piece functions as a lyrical gesture echoing the ventricular mechanics of slipping time. Cherry blossoms drift like fragile testaments to impermanence, while bamboo and steel become conduits for quiet defiance with forgotten secrets.

Threaded through this visual lattice is a narration, part incantation, part elegy, guiding the viewer around states of awareness that shimmer in and out of clarity.

Here modernity dissolves into myth and neon bleeds into shadow – “VENTRICULARITIES” invites this mindful disorientation, one that doesn’t mourn transience but inhabits it.

In the end “architecture illuminates the ephemeral,” and the film resists resolution, offering instead a deepening fissure: an opening between presence and disappearance. Less a film to be watched than a rupture to be entered.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Fences – dir. Jacinda Barker

(HONORABLE MENTION)

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Original Film Title: Fences

Director’s Name: Jacinda Barker

Writer’s Name: Jacinda Barker, Werner Breedt

Producer: Jacinda Barker

Country of Origin: South Africa

Country of Filming: South Africa

Language: Afrikaans, Zulu

Runtime: 30 minutes

Film Description:

This film is a poetic exploration of fences, as both a symbolic social division between the working and middle classes in South Africa and as a symptom of post-apartheid society. It tackles the pervasive perception and feeling of unsafety present in contemporary South Africa. Fences (2025) is partly inspired by Vittorio De Sica’s Italian neorealist film Bicycle Thieves (1948). A South African folkloric figure, the tokoloshe, is used to personify the sense of psychological unsafety of the film’s characters. Fences (2025) touches on current social issues in South Africa, such as load shedding and crime. The film attempts to draw a parallel between working-class conditions in post-war Italy to those of the working-class in post-apartheid South Africa. It follows a South African security guard travelling far distances to work on his bicycle, which gets stolen, and the aftermath this has on his life and psychological state.

Pieces of a Life – dir. Zanifa Darville

(HONORABLE MENTION)

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Original Film Title: Pieces of a Life

Director’s Name: Zanifa Darville

Writer’s Name: Tabitha Ritchie

Producer: Zanifa Darville, Tabitha Ritchie, Donovan Lynch, Shanaye Smith

Country of Origin: Bahamas

Country of Filming: Bahamas

Language: English

Runtime: 12 minutes 35 seconds

Film Description:

Pieces of a Life follows Richard, an elderly Bahamian man coping with the recent loss of his beloved wife, Marion. Clinging to their shared home and her belongings, he maintains every detail just as she left it.

When news of a powerful hurricane threatens the island, Richard dismisses the warnings. He’s weathered storms before. Through flashbacks, we glimpse the life and love he shared with Marion, even as his neighbor urges him to seek safer shelter. Richard refuses, determined to stay.

As the hurricane arrives, his efforts to protect the house are quickly overwhelmed. The film becomes a quiet meditation on grief, memory, and the uncontrollable forces like love and loss that shape our lives.

The Road Ahead – dir. Job Lucet

(FINALIST)

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Original Film Title: The Road Ahead

Director’s Name: Job Lucet

Writer’s Name: Job Lucet

Producer: Job Lucet

Country of Origin: Haiti

Country of Filming: Haiti

Language: French, Louisiana Creole French

Runtime: 7 minutes 1 second

Film Description:

In a country where opportunities are scarce, two young Haitians are abandoned during their attempt to leave. Faced with uncertainty, they make a bold choice: to stay and build their future from nothing, proving that success is not found abroad, but created at home.

Mise en place – dir. Emil Emilov Mladenov

(HONORABLE MENTION)

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Original Film Title: Mise en place

Director’s Name: Emil Emilov Mladenov

Writer’s Name: Emil Emilov Mladenov

Producer: Anastasiya Artyomova

Country of Origin: Bulgaria

Country of Filming: Bulgaria

Language: Bulgarian

Runtime: 14 minutes 5 seconds

Film Description:

A man goes to a gourmet tasting experience to find more than he expected.

The New Look – dir. Jarritt Joseph Negri II

(FINALIST)

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Original Film Title: The Journal

Director’s Name: Jarritt Joseph Negri II

Writer’s Name: Jarritt Joseph Negri II

Producer: Jarritt Joseph Negri II

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 5 minutes 57 seconds

Film Description:

Two friends meet up for the first time in years, and one shows up with a new, controversial look.

The Journal – dir. Hafiz Hassan

(FINALIST)

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Original Film Title: The Journal

Director’s Name: Hafiz Hassan

Writer’s Name: Hafiz Hassan

Producer: Hafiz Hassan, ACE Production

Country of Origin: Pakistan

Country of Filming: Czechia, Pakistan

Language: English, Urdu

Runtime: 19 Minutes

Film Description:

A reflective short film exploring identity, memory, and the invisible forces that shape our choices. The Journal follows Sultan (a poet) as he drifts between dreams and reality, searching for meaning in the fragments of his reality; the people he meets, and the inner dialogue that refuses to stay silent.