Live Action Category

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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Live Action

“I Wanted to Create Life on Screen”: Rohan Parashuram Kanawade Dissects His Award-Winning Debut ‘Cactus Pears’

Rohan Parashuram Kanawade reveals how he crafted his Sundance and SXSW London winning debut - a tender, life-affirming portrait of grief and queer love.

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Live Action, Premiere

A Pregnancy Scare Descends Into Cinematic Comedy Chaos in Chad Corhan’s Rapid-Fire Absurd Short ‘Gas Station Sushi’

Chad Corhan explains how intensive same-room writing sessions shaped his breakneck surreal comedy about social anxiety during an existential personal crisis.

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Live Action

Chi Thai Transforms Her Personal Refugee Trauma Into a Haunting Meditation on Survivor’s Guilt in ‘Lullaby’

Chi Thai explains why genre filmmaking was the only framework able to hold the horrific weight of her short depicting the trauma of a tragic refugee crossing.

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Live Action, Premiere

A Middle-Aged Woman’s Entire World Slowly Unravels in Nick Richardson’s Powerful Monologue Short ‘Still Life’

Nick Richardson shares how the women he grew up around inspired his intimate character study of a middle-aged woman who suddenly finds her life in freefall.

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Live Action, Premiere

Max Kane Excavates the Unknowable Complexity of Love and Loss in Visceral Short ‘Ah-Ma Burns’

From static shots to controlled chaos, Max Kane breaks down how he used dynamic cinematography to mirror his protagonist's emotional psychological journey.

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Live Action

Louise Weard Confronts Gender, Sex Work and Queer Friendship in Indie Epic ‘Castration Movie i: Traps’

Incels, Intimacy & Infertility: Louise Weard dissects her anarchic approach to directing her gut-punching queer epic.

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