OFFICIAL SELECTIONS FOR August 10 2025 FESTIVAL

 "A Breath Apart" is a poetic short film about illness, resilience, and the invisible bond between two souls.
As a man faces cancer, his mind escapes to a surreal battlefield where he meets a mysterious child.
Together, they navigate pain, memory, and hope—between life and the silence beyond. 

"  A Breath Apart is a quiet triumph of emotional storytelling, an animated short that doesn’t rush to explain illness, but instead dares to feel it.  It’s not just a metaphor... it’s a meditation. Pain, in this film, is not just endured but transfigured into meaning. " 

This satirical, documentary-style short film humorously explores the quirky, awkward, and often absurd coexistence between androids and humans. Through candid, tongue-in-cheek interviews, humans reveal their bafflement over android logic and etiquette, while androids dryly comment on human inefficiencies, irrational behaviors, and inexplicable emotional dramas. 

Framed as a mockumentary, the film playfully critiques humanity's self-importance and technological dependency, while highlighting the comedic misunderstandings that arise from bridging the digital-biological divide. Ultimately, it pokes fun at the irony that, in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, humans might not be the smartest beings in the room after all. 

 "Who’s The Robot Now? is sharp, funny, and unsettling in the most delightful way. The mockumentary style works perfectly, letting the absurd truths slip in behind the satire like a wink in a serious conversation."

 In the year 2100, on an artificial planet called the "Cosmic Observatory," scientists initiated the "Planet 1001 Project." The team of architects developed a supercomputing system for planetary simulation missions, with the meta-instruction: "Generate the most perfect planet." The goal was to deduce the most ideal civilization model through 1,000 planetary simulation experiments—selecting the next home for humanity. 

However, during these thousand iterations, the simulation system ultimately collapsed. The female protagonist, the sole survivor of the 37th planetary collapse incident and a member of the architect team, witnessed the entire process of the system's generation, iteration, and breakdown.

Only then did she realize with shock that so-called "perfection" is merely the eternal dialogue of all imperfections. And this film is the final message she left for the humans still living on Earth...

"This is the kind of speculative fiction that dances with poetry and whispers in philosophical riddles. It doesn’t fully make sense now, but that might just be the point. It’s not about now. It’s about what we refuse to question until it's too late."

A full-frontal attack on prompt culture, on curated aesthetics, on the sickly sweet optimism of tech bros selling creativity like it’s deodorant. A riot with subtitles, it spits truth like a busted amp at 3 AM - deliberately raw, gloriously off. There’s no attempt to be liked. It’s alive. Punk didn’t die—it just found a new enemy. 

It takes aim at AI’s sterile “creativity,” where chaos is erased and vision is focus-grouped. It’s punk as performance - all noise, nerve, and no permission. This is art the algorithm can’t replicate—and will never understand. 

"Boris doesn’t just play with AI, he weaponizes it as a tool of the unconscious. He’s not trying to make nice things. He’s trying to poke the collective wound. And using Jung’s collective unconscious via the very models trained on it? That’s straight-up poetic warfare....And that voiceover is not just spitting hate, it’s spitting refusal. Refusal to obey, to conform, to be cute, to be liked. "

 Jack, an interstellar express courier, receives an S-class delivery mission to travel to an uncharted planet - what extraordinary encounters await him in the vast unknown?

This story uses traditional montage techniques and incorporates artificial intelligence technology. Every frame brings a cinematic visual experience. An S-class mysterious cargo mission— is it an opportunity, a strange encounter, or an unimaginable crisis? All of this awaits you to unlock.

"This short has that playful sci-fi pulse, crisp, cinematic, and just the right dose of alien kink to keep our intergalactic curiosity entertained. Jack really delivered on this delivery mission, literally and figuratively, and the whole experience felt like a sweet flirtation with classic space adventure, polished by sleek AI aesthetics." 

A visually sumptuous meditation on stillness, identity, and quiet rebellion, The Golden Finale stands out for its luxe aesthetic, gilded mannequins, marble textures, glowing pearls, and every polished surface bathed in carefully placed light. The film feels like walking through a high-end fashion house after hours, where the silence is not emptiness, but a gathering of energy and potential.

The use of AI tools is masterful, serving not just as a technical experiment but as a genuine creative force.

What’s most striking is the consistency and attention to detail. Every shot is deliberate; the visual language oozes luxury and restraint, yet hints at subversion beneath the surface. The sound design complements it.

This is not just a film, it’s a slow-burning meditation carved out of metaphor and mystery. A Thousand and One Stories of STONE takes its time, unapologetically experimental in structure, and whispers its narrative like incense smoke curling through a temple. 

Blending live action with AI-generated imagery, the film invites viewers into a Rashomon-style prism of perspectives, each one reflecting a different speculation about a user named “Stone” who has disappeared. It’s eerie, elegant, and stylistically bold, with cinematography that feels painterly in intention.

The philosophical weight is felt: "Hell is not other people, hell is you." A line that lingers like smoke in the lungs. This is a thoughtful, art-forward short that embraces ambiguity and layered introspection.