Live Action Category

Live Action

Two Sisters Fracture Under a Collapsing World in Leandros Braounos & Daniel Howells’ Afrikaans Short ‘Winter Slaap’

Guilt, grief and inherited expectation press down on two sisters in Leandros Braounos & Daniel Howells' wintry portrait of family disintegration.

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Live Action

Li Anne Liew’s Gentle Ghost Drifts Through Strangers’ Secret Selves in ‘glide (all the people i’ll never be)’

In Li Anne Liew's tender ghost story reverie, a young woman wanders Los Angeles unseen as she mourns the life she's leaving and the ones she'll never live.

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Live Action

Defiant Black Trans Sisterhood Crashes Upscale Gentrification in Nana Duffuor’s Heist Short ‘Rainbow Girls’

As tech money prices them out of their own city, Nana Duffuor's trio of friends turn brazen luxury theft into an act of belonging, defiance and love.

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Live Action

Nathan Xia Interrogates Hollywood Representation and Personal Ego in Satirical Short ‘Flavor of the Month’

What do you do when your values are at odds with your own ambitions? Nathan Xia turns that question into a squirming, darkly comic piece of self-scrutiny.

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Live Action

How Jasper Caverly’s ‘Pleasure’ Challenges Masculinity and Queerness Through Australia’s Eshay Subculture.

Frustrated by insincere, offensive contemporary queer characterizations, Jasper Caverly crafts a visceral portrait of young men wrestling with vulnerability.

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Live Action, Premiere

Kelly Sarri Turns a Punishing Summer Into Intimate, Generational Warfare in Her Scorching Climate Short ‘Heat Me’

Kelly Sarri grounds global climate anxieties within the invisible domestic toll borne by three generations of women inside a sweltering Greek apartment.

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Live Action, Premiere

Lianpeng Zhao Draws on Chinese Myth for a Soul’s Last Journey in ‘Museum of Death’

Classical poetry, weathered belongings and Cantonese opera carry what can't be spoken in Lianpeng Zhao's tender portrait of a soul's long farewell.

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Live Action

David Huang & Albie Smith-Chang on Blurring Reality and Fiction in iPhone Short Film ‘WE BUY GOLD’

David Huang & Albie Smith-Chang on how real locations, heavy improvisation and shooting on iPhone gave their short its authentic, unpredictable feel.

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Live Action

Two Men, One Doorstep and a Whole Lot of Unbearable Tension Collide in Elliott Power’s Short Film ‘K-9INE!’

Shot on 35mm in a single house, writer/director Elliott Power straddles menace and humour in a psychological standoff short disguised as suburban mundanity.

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Live Action, Premiere

Elias Suhail Follows a Young Mother to the Excruciating Edge of an Impossible Decision in ‘Beneath a Mother’s Feet’

Through near-wordless accumulation and visions of djinn and dread, Elias Suhail honours the gravity of a departure his film refuses to make easy.

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Live Action

Camila de Ilhéus Turns the Agony of Online Dating, Language Slips and a Brazilian Wax Into Cringe Comedy ‘Sofia’

Static frames, held beats and a sly aspect ratio shift power Camila de Ilhéus' squirm-inducing story of first impressions gone excruciatingly wrong.

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Animation, Live Action, Premiere

Live-Action Grime Meets Hand-Drawn Whimsy in Cameron Macgowan’s Silent Eco-Fable of Scavengers and Sprouts ‘Seed’

Shot with friends in Kananaskis wilderness dressed in scavenged junk, Cameron Macgowan's charming wordless short grew through years of unhurried collaboration.

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