Director: María Belén Poncio
Country: Argentina
Length: 12’06”
Institute: New York University - Tisch School of Arts
Synopsis: Isabel is ostracized by the firefighting corps she belongs to after taking a stand against a construction company involved in forest fires. Determined to move forward on her own, she faces her loneliness and frustration in an encounter that will challenge the very essence of her fight.
Profile: Writer, director and editor from Cordoba, Argentina. She directed and co-wrote the short VR film "4 Feet: Blind Date", supported by the Sundance Institute and the Biennale di Venezia College Cinema VR. It premiered at the Biennale di Venezia 2018, Sundance 2019, and SXSW 2019, winning the best VR narrative award in the last one. It also won awards at Dok Leipzig and Guanajuato Film Festival. She later directed and co-wrote the fictional cross-platform miniseries 4 Feet High, produced by Arte France TV, which premiered in Biennale di Venezia 2020, Sundance 2021, BFI 2021, TIFF Next Wave, and won jury and audience awards at SXSW 2021.
Director: Atakan Yılmaz
Country: Turkey
Length: 19’57”
Institute: Kadir Has University
Synopsis: Hakkı, a university student who makes a living performing as a drag queen in Istanbul, is shaken one night by the news of his mother's death. Having hidden his sexual orientation from everyone except his late mother, he returns home after three years, facing the heavy expectations of being the only male child and the ignorance of his relatives. In his old room, he finds moving discoveries: a brightly colored sweater his mother had started knitting, a bundle of cash, and a photograph capturing a moment they shared during one of his secret visits. Despite grappling with guilt over his mother’s death and his father’s emotional distance, this journey becomes a catalyst for self-acceptance.
Profile: Writer, director, producer. Born in 1996 in İzmir, Atakan Yılmaz is a filmmaker with a educational background in political science, theater and cinema. Active since 2010, he has taken on roles in acting, directing, screenwriting, and post-production. A graduate of Istanbul University and Kadir Has University, he co-founded Chronotope Film in 2024. Yılmaz has directed various commercials and music videos, continues to work in this field, and contributes to screenplay teams for diverse projects. His latest short film ‘Hi Mom, It’s Me, Lou Lou’ is currently on the festival circuit.
Director: Guzel Ahmetshina
Country: Russian Federation
Length: 22’20”
Institute: GITR Film and Television School (Russia)
Synopsis: Alice's mother arranges music lessons for her daughter with Lydia, a lonely elderly neighbor from above. She happily agrees to study with the girl for free, but Alice turns out to be a teenager with a difficult character. Lydia tries to approach the girl, and in turn Alice learns not to reject her beloved ones, opening up to the world and people around her.
Profile: In 2024, Guzel Ahmetshina graduated from the Institute of Cinema and Television of the GITR, directing faculty (workshop of Sergei Emmanuelovich Matz), specializing in feature film directing. An aspiring director of feature films, she has worked on many creative and commercial film sets and projects. She acted in a theater studio and participated in choreographic performances, which led her to become a film director.
Director: Hana Hancinova
Country: Slovakia
Length: 26’50”
Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava
Synopsis: Elena, a fifty-year old social worker, is thrown into an existential crisis after a troubling sexual encounter initiated by a teenager under her care. Will she pretend it never happened, or will she finally face the world on her own terms?
Profile: After obtaining her Master’s in Mathematics in Lille, France, she switched from the numbers to the pictures and started to train as a director in Bratislava. Currently a PhD student in film directing, she is working on the pre-production phase of her first feature film that should be released next summer.
Director: Tina Ahmadi Krol
Country: Islamic Republic of Iran/Poland
Length: 9’30”
Institute: Warsaw Film School
Synopsis: During the 2022 protests in Iran, a mother struggles to save the life of her wounded daughter while keeping her younger child safe, as the police is doing everything in their power to arrest them.
Profile: Tina Ahmadi Król, born in Tehran, Iran in 1996, graduated in Cinema Studies with a specialization in Screenwriting from the Faculty of Cinema and Theater at Art University in Tehran. She also completed a B.A. in Film Directing at Warsaw Film School in Poland. With several years of experience in visual storytelling, she is always on the lookout for ways to authentically portray women and minority issues on the screen.
Director: Inés Benito
Country: Spain
Length: 17’29”
Institute: CEV
Synopsis: Young Greta seeks Lola's help to make her debut as a prostitute, but their friendship has a limit: Greta does not allow anyone to visit her house.
Profile: As part of the new generation of young people seeking to make a name for themselves in the world of Spanish cinema, Inés Benito, screenwriter and director of the project, is a passionate filmmaker with training acquired in Madrid, who has recently completed her education with a Master’s in Directing and Production. Passionate about creating unsettling worlds that challenge the audience, she applies a distinctive approach and unique vision to each project, exploring new creative and emotional territories.
Director: Sacha Teboul
Country: France
Length: 9’16”
Institute: La Fémis
Synopsis: Simon, aged 22, comes across some Guadeloupean music tapes while clearing out his grandmother’s house. He visits her at the nursing home, but Maryse, who suffers from Alzheimer's, does not seem to recall the tapes she continuously used to listen to when Simon was a child. However, once she hears the music, her body awakens, and memories of her past in the West Indies resurface... Maryse is taken back to a dance she did with her lover when he tells her he must leave for the Algerian War.
Profile: Sacha Teboul was born in Paris in 1995. At the age of 18 he entered Les Beaux-Arts de Paris. During the five years of study he developed works spanning from cinema to reworked images and installations. He was admitted to La Femis in the film direction department in 2019. His films have been selected and premiered in several festivals such as IndieLisboa, Busan and Brive. His latest short movie, produced by Arte, is in post-production. Heis currently developing his first feature film, supported for its writing by the CNC. He is an artist-in-residence at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Paris.
Director: Adolfo Margulis
Country: Mexico
Length: 24’
Institute: Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica
Synopsis: Ramiro is a young addict admitted to a rehab center. At first, he distances himself from everyone, but gradually the experiences and the worlds of the other patients force him to confront his own reality.
Profile: Mexican director, photographer and writer; he was born in Mexico City in 1995 and graduated in Photography from the Active School of Photography. He began his passion for cinema during his teenage years, working on film and advertising since the age of fifteen. He began his specialization in Film Direction at El Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica. His keen eye for fashion and portrait photography has led him to create numerous fashion films and advertising campaigns for various brands, as well as to direct editorial features for magazines such as Vogue and Wired. He has also directed music videos.
