Kielo (Finland) by Janina Rajakangas, Sinem Kayacan

Kielo finds it hard to sit still in class. She takes a break venturing into the corridors of her imagination. The film Kielo touches on the subject of love, support as well as contempt between young people in the school environment, with a focus on the convergence of neurodivergence and sisterhood/peer-hood. We all have a poetic body, that dances when encouraged. It just needs to be given a chance to exist alongside the body that goes by the rules and is used to shy away from expression. 

Running time: 00:04:36

The End in Slow Motion (United States) by Joshua Kaufman

A woman (Marcia DeBonis; "13 Going on 30," "Sometimes I Think About Dying") develops heightened awareness of the cruel world outside of an unnervingly calm house, as the threat of apocalypse stokes chaos.

Running time: 00:12:47

Ottilie Moore’s Protégé Charlotte Salomon (United States) by Dana Plays

Charlotte Salomon embarked on the creation of widely eccentric artistic endeavor to save her own life after learning she was the sole survivor of her maternal line all of whom committed suicide. That endeavor was Life? or Theater?  – an epic autobiographical work of art created by German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon between 1940 and 1942 while in hiding in the South of France, consisting of over 1300 gouache paintings, of which 769 were selected accompanied by text overlays and musical annotations, which narrate her life story, family tragedies, and experiences in Nazi Germany.

Ottilie Moore sheltered Charlotte Salomon from 1938-1943, during WWII. "Life? or Theater?" Charlotte Salomon's magnum opus, dedicated to Ottilie Moore, was created between 1940 and 1942 (eighteen months at L'Hermitage and four months at nearby Hotel Belle Aurore in Saint Jean Cap-Ferrat in the Cote d’Azur).  

Running time: 01:02:53

Home (Belgium) by Hanne Schillemans, Ralph Timmermans

Home is a short film about the fragility of life and the virtue of solitude. A faceless figure attempting not to resist the endless waves of pointlessness.

Running time: 00:11:29

Natal Kick, Cosmo Ground (Korea, South Korea) by Jaeik Kim

Under the occupied shadows, floating cosmo ground, xenoliths, and the breaths perceived from all beings are increasingly coarsened by humanity’s collective experiments. This work considers all existing entities as pioneers of a sentient cosmos, thinking not only from Earth but from the universe at large, and positions both human and non-human elements as agents jointly adventuring through this unknown space, while exploring the ecological emergencies of the present.

Running time: 00:12:37

Kissing Ralph (United States) by Daniel Lewinstein

Kissing Ralph follows an anxious young man struggling to participate in social rituals.

Running time: 00:40:00

Dragonfly (China) by Siyang Liu

Great-grandson Zhou Zihang has only two memories of his great-grandmother - her funeral and a contact. Unable to remember season and weather, he only remembers the persimmons that were handed to him and the unexplained crying

Running time: 00:19:27

Release (Hungary) by Zoltan Gergely Szabo

A young man is in prison instead of his brother because he took the punishment on his behalf. A mysterious visitor arrives to persuade him to make a new confession. However, the tempter fails to achieve his goal.

Running time: 00:10:09

The Simultaneity of Breathing (Austria) by Mersolis Schöne

In “The Simultaneity of Breathing”, Mersolis Schöne envisions experimental film production as a place of encounter where drawings and press photos by Austrian artist Lisa Est and Thomas Ballhausen's poetry come together in a shared philosophical experiment. 

Running time: 00:04:14