| FILM | DIRECTOR | COUNTRY | LENGTH | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alley | Sophie Wu | China | 7 min | |
 The girl inadvertently walked into a quiet alley. As she wandered aimlessly, she suddenly caught sight of a person lying on the ground not far away, while a slender, suspicious figure crouched beside him, gripping a hammer in his hand. The air was thick with tension, and it seemed the depths of the alley were whispering, revealing secrets that were hidden from the world. Film Block: Worlds Beyond: Shorts for Teens | ||||
| Breaking the Feed | Rukshana Tabassum | India | 23 min | |
Two lifelong friends, bonded by their shared passion for MMA, find themselves on divergent paths when the allure of social media enters the cage. As their training intensifies, so does the competition—not in the ring but for the spotlight. One’s rise as a social media sensation sparks envy, while the other grapples with feeling overshadowed and forgotten. As likes and followers pile up, their once-unshakable friendship teeters on the edge, forcing them to confront whether they’re fighting for the sport—or for validation on screen. Film Block: Reel Reflections: Shorts for tweens and teens | ||||
| Coole Jungs | Tajo Hurrle | Germany | 15 min | |
 In the hottest summer he can remember, eleven-year-old Caspar sweats profusely in his school uniform trousers. The strict headmistress, Mrs. Gardé, stands at the school entrance, meticulously enforcing the dress code. When she announces, “Trousers or skirts! Otherwise, there will be anarchy!” Caspar decides to take her at her word and shows up in a skirt the next morning. A decision that causes quite a stir. Will Caspar be able to withstand the pressure? Film Block: Finding My Brave: Shorts for Teens | ||||
| Eloise's Summer | Lize Cuveele | Belgium | 16 min | |
 In Eloise’s Summer, a nine-year-old girl discovers the world of her curly hair and Cameroonian roots. Eloise is mixed: her mom is Belgian and her dad is from Cameroon. Though her hair can sometimes be challenging and even painful, she learns to love it and explores the endless possibilities of her hair. She captures her summer adventure in a self-drawn book. Film Block: Windows to the World: Documentaries for Everyone | ||||
| GET ON WITH IT! | Grace Rodgers | Australia | 11 min | |
‘Get On With It’ follows Frankie, an eight year old girl with a very active imagination. In this film, we follow Frankie, as she discovers for the first time in a game of ‘Death Stuck In The Mud’ that everyone dies in real life. As humans, we’re constantly working through that certainty, and in this film, we get to cut straight to the heart of it, through a child’s perspective. We stay with Frankie after she finds out, at her Grandad’s 73rd birthday party, and become witness to her fear, fuelled by erratic imaginings on all the ways people can possibly die… Film Block: Reel Reflections: Shorts for tweens and teens | ||||
| Girl No. 60427 | Shulamit Lifshitz, Orial Berkovits | Israel | 22 min | |
Tel Aviv, 1998, summer vacation. Reut finds and reads her grandmother’s secret notebook from the Holocaust. Grandma’s story resonates in Reut’s well-developed imagination, and the fun week in Tel Aviv with Grandpa and Grandma turns into something else entirely. Reut’s relationship with her Grandma is changed forever. Film Block: Slice of Life & Everyday Surreal: Shorts for Everyone | ||||
| Graduation Day | Charlene Moore, Tasha Hubbard | Canada | 12 min | |
 The power to dream beats strongly in the heart of Connie Stonestand. At the age of 63, Connie has spent a lifetime caring for her family and instilling in them the importance of pursuing one's dreams, including to her 18-year-old grandson Sage Stonestand- Checkosis. As the school year nears its end on the James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, an important annual event gains deeper significance as Connie and Sage prepare to graduate high school together and share the spotlight to inspire generations of others. Film Block: Windows to the World: Documentaries for Everyone | ||||
| love, mum | Stella Moira Atmadja | Indonesia | 5 min | |
 A daughter navigates life with the absence of her busy mother. But a visit from a neighbor reveals that her mother was never there. Film Block: Reel Reflections: Shorts for tweens and teens | ||||
| Mamó & Me | Jack Desmond, Cian Desmond | Ireland | 15 min | |
On the day of his grandmother’s wake, a boy in rural Ireland mourns a dead sheep with the help of his grandmother’s spirit. Film Block: Reel Reflections: Shorts for tweens and teens | ||||
| Marta, Aisha, and the Volcano | Alexandre Peralta | Spain | 7 min | |
Film Block: Windows to the World: Documentaries for Everyone | ||||
| NAOMI | Ella Deutsch | Israel | 8 min | |
Thirteen-year-old Naomi is one of a group of girls who break in to the local swimming pool one night as a prank. But their adventure will force Naomi to come to terms with how far she is prepared to go to hide her disability. Film Block: Finding My Brave: Shorts for Teens | ||||
| Playing House | Maria Alvsaker Næss | Norway | 7 min | |
 The best friends Astrid and Kristin are playing as usual, but something unexpected happens, and they start to argue. Can they become friends again? Film Block: Reel Reflections: Shorts for tweens and teens | ||||
| Rodrigo Branquias | Andrés Guevara Espinosa | Colombia | 17 min | |
A 9-year-old boy with an extraordinary talent for holding his breath underwater dreams of participating in a freediving championship and, at the same time, he wants to prove to his mother that dreams, with passion and perseverance, can come true. Film Block: Finding My Brave: Shorts for Teens | ||||
| The Mountain Knows | Yiwei Cheng | China | 18 min | |
 The Mountain Knows is a short documentary that explores green economic development in Nanping Village. It focuses on three main characters: an elderly beekeeper, the owner of a century-old B&B, and a clerk at an organic farm. Each of them runs their own business while prioritizing environmentally friendly practices. The film concentrates on their daily routines and attitudes toward the ecological economy through interviews. Film Block: Windows to the World: Documentaries for Everyone | ||||
| Tropical Fish | Shirley Xie | China | 7 min | |
 Growing up in a broken home, Xiao Su yearns to escape reality and see the tropical fish by the sea. However, when his journey is unexpectedly cut short, he finds himself back home, gazing in silence at the captive fish in the dim light, where dreams and reality blur into one. Film Block: Reel Reflections: Shorts for tweens and teens | ||||
| Walk Beside Me | Taehyun Heo | Republic of Korea | 3 min | |
 All the good actions that we take for the sake of society–recycling diligently, picking up trash, and trying to be a vegetarian–often seem futile and meaningless in the grand industry scale of our planet Earth. Does that mean our actions are truly meaningless? If so, how can we deal with this blatant meaninglessness? Inspired mainly by Camus and our high school’s philosophy teachers, this film aims to investigate the ultimate question of existentialism. Film Block: Reel Reflections: Shorts for tweens and teens | ||||
