Live Action Category

Live Action, Premiere

Ethan Edwards Crafts a Biting Literary Duel of Confided Secrets Revealed in Razor-Sharp Two-Hander ‘Goose’

Edwards reveals how he discovered the perfect psychologically damning secret and why he avoided traditional rehearsals to craft an authentic battle of wills.

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Live Action

Choreographing Community Collapse: Athina Rachel Tsangari on the Ritualistic Filmmaking of ‘Harvest’

Athina Rachel Tsangari discusses the inimitable nature of 16mm & its essentiality in crafting her hallucinatory vision of a way of life crushed by capitalism.

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Live Action, Premiere

Callie Carpinteri Derails Female Sex Shaming in Her Empowering Comedic Drama ‘Dirty Towel’

Callie Carpinteri recounts the motivation that led her and Emma Parks to provide a fresh take on sex, shame and self-worth in their coming-of-age short film.

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Live Action, Premiere

Abigail Wilson Revs up a Visceral Battle Against the Self in Adrenaline-Fuelled Action Short ‘Overdrive’

Abigail Wilson reveals how an apathy to mainstream depictions of menstruation fuelled her high-octane fight for bodily control allegorical short film.

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Live Action, Premiere

Dexter Demme & Jack Depp Pit Pride Against Absurdity in Their Tense Couples’ Mexican Standoff Comedy ‘Tug of War’

Dexter Demme & Jack Depp unpack the seemingly absurd marital standoff in their comedy short where a beloved forgotten item exposes relationship fragility.

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Article, Live Action

Andzej Gavriss Crafts a Hopeful Ode to Migration, Love and the Universal Concept of Home in ‘Foreign Root’

“I wanted to make a film as naive and honest as a child’s drawing.” Andzej Gavriss on stripping away cynicism to craft a refugee story replete with hope.

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Live Action, Premiere

Finegan Sampson Unlocks the Painful Beauty of Acting and Emotional Truth in ‘Teach Me How To Cry’

Finegan Sampson shares how a fascination with the transformation of trauma into performance coalesced into his drama about an actor's need to embrace grief.

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Live Action, Premiere

tao/s Present a Raw Portrait of Family Turmoil Born of Mental Illness in Personal Short ‘Very Still, Very Quiet’

tao/s explain why the one-shot was the most authentic way to capture the emotional chaos of a family trying to cope with their mom's mental health disorder.

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Live Action, Premiere

The Newman Brothers Expose the Exploitative Absurdity of the Gig Economy in Satirical Short ‘Amigo’

The Newman Brothers reveal how their rent-a-friend satire evolved from TV pilot to a sharp social commentary comedy about convenient, predatory tech platforms.

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Live Action, Premiere

A Veteran’s Hallucinatory Homecoming Unfolds in Suad Gara’s Intimate Portrait of Invisible Battle Wounds ‘Qaragh’

Suad Gara opens up about embedding within a Lezgin community to craft her PTSD meditation short, blending ritual, memory and psychological fragmentation.

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Live Action

Bailey Tom Bailey Blends Tension and Dark Humour in Revisionist Petticoat Duel Period Comedy ‘Satisfaction’

Bailey Tom Bailey walks DN through the witty showdown in his tale of an aristocratic duel fought between a society lady and her mentor over a trivial insult.

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Live Action

A TV Star Reckons With Her True Sexual Identity in Alyssa Aldaz’s Dreamlike Short ‘Beverly Heights’

Dissecting heteronormativity and queer repression in the film industry, Alyssa Aldaz recounts how her liminal queer drama began with an evocative dream.

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