This Damnation
Russell De Rozario
Director, Writer // Russell De Rozario
Writer//MARK WORRAL
Producer//BEN DILLION De Rozario
Country of origin // Taiwan
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best Short Narrative, Best Art Direction
Synopsis //Period drama set in London and Belfast in 1977
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Short Narrative, Best Art Direction
Director, Writer //Kuan Cheng LIN
Producer// Yu Wei LIN
Country of origin // Taiwan
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best Director, Best Cinematography
Synopsis //A woman who is known as the best swordsman in the world accidentally kills the person who saved her one day, causing her to hesitate and slow down when drawing her sword. Under the influence of new and old hatreds, she needs to let go of the distracting thoughts in her mind in order to find peace in her heart.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Director, Best Cinematography
Director // Olivia Jackson
Writers// JJ Zink, Emily Motta, Hannah Wawersick
Producers// JJ Zink, Ally Bernabe, Albert Koenig
Country of origin // United States
Season Award #17 Nomination //Best Short Documentary
Synopsis //From Sound to the Sea explores the struggle to preserve one of
America’s most fragile coastal ecosystems. Home to a rare herd of ~150 wild horses, Corolla is at a tipping point: environmental diversity versus unchecked development. The documentary reveals a community wrestling with its identity and the responsibilities of stewardship.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Short Documentary
LOOKSMAXXXING
Lucas Wilhelm
Director// Lucas Wilhelm
Writers//Silja Højmark, Joel Kock Nielsen, Isak Friis
Producer//Mads Nellemann Johansen
Country of Origin// Denmark
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best First-Time Filmmaker
Synopsis //A young man, Silas, becomes increasingly obsessed with online “looksmaxxing” culture, the belief that one can optimize their physical appearance to achieve success and validation. After a failed date exposes his insecurity and distorted worldview, his fixation spirals into compulsive and self-destructive behavior. Isolated in his apartment, Silas obsessively follows extreme online advice, pushing his body beyond its limits in a desperate attempt to become “perfect.” Ultimately, his pursuit of physical perfection leads to a violent and tragic breakdown, blurring the line between self-improvement and self-destruction.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best First-Time Filmmaker
Director, Writer // Maxwell Smith
Country of origin // United States
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best Animation
Synopsis //A naive explorer leaves the safety of his walled-off society to traverse the unmapped regions of the fantastical world he calls home.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Animation
WORM
Jin Lee
Director, Writer//Jin Lee
Country of origin //South Korea
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best Editing/Post-Production
Synopsis //The day ‘he’ killed ants with a cigarette, ants swarmed his dreams. After his story, I, his therapist, feel inexplicable unease. When I go to ‘you’ for advice, I remember: when we were young, you loved playing with worms.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Editing/Post-Production
Director//Simon Brown
Writer// Mitzi Smishkewych Kosovske
Producer// Wolodymyr Smishkewych
Country of origin // Ireland
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best Actor (Shauna Radford)
Synopsis //Sadie, an autistic nonverbal teenager, develops a crush on her new neighbour, and expresses her deep feelings for her through a stream of portraits. When Sadie’s secret blows out into the open, this unexpectedly brings the girls closer in a connection neither of them could have foreseen.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Actor (Shauna Radford)
Never sleep again
Andronica Marquis
Director, Writer // Andronica Marquis
Writer// Reinier van Harten
Country of Origin//Netherlands
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best Music Video
Synopsis //Nooit meer slapen -Never sleep again- is a story born of Reindier’s experience of sleeplessness for days on end while on dexamethasone and radiation treatments.
After days awake, the bed becomes impossibly vast, a landscape you can’t escape. Shadows start to crawl like mice inside the walls. as dreams bleed into reality, sleep feels both close and far.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Music Video
Director, Writer //Georgia Reed-Stamm
Producers//Saskia Villaflor Curry, Lex Radziner
Country of origin // United States
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best Acting Ensemble
Synopsis //Longtime friends confront newfound feelings after their first day of sophomore year of high school.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Acting Ensemble
Rough Trade
Cassie Michelle Seinuk
Writer// Cassie Michelle Seinuk
Country of origin // United States
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best Screenplay
Synopsis //Haunted by the tragic death of a friend, Casey, a young, coke-nosed, hustler, will turn tricks with anyone to buy his dream car, a classic Thunderbird, and escape his small East coast town to sunny LA. But when his most lucrative John turns out to be his mother’s hotheaded boyfriend, and drugs cost less than a car, escape may be another dream that slips away.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Screenplay
Director,Writer, Producer//Fred Eyriey
Country of origin // France, Réunion
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best Feature Narrative
Synopsis //Gito is a happy man. He lives in Cilaos, a small village perched at an altitude of 1,200 meters in the heart of the mountainous cirque with the eponymous name. He grows lentils and vines and has the best yields in the entire circus because he loves what he does. When his father dies, he will have to manage the inheritance of several hectares of land, creating jealousies in an environment where land is rare. He worries the whole village by evoking the idea of giving land to farmers who would agree to take up organic farming as he and his father practice it. It is a “revolutionary” and poorly understood approach. At the age of fifty, he will also have to “discover” life and its complexity.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Feature Narrative
A Hiphop Minute
Pascal Garnier
Director//Pascal Garnier
Producer// Brecht Van Elslande
Country of origin // Belgium
Season Award #17 Nomination // Best Feature Documentary
Synopsis // A Hiphop Minute returns to 1986 New York and it’s iconic rap artists, and picks up where classic Dutch TV documentary Big Fun In The Big Town stopped.
In A Hiphop Minute we revisit the same hiphop artists and New York, 35 years later. We are curious to find out what happened to them, how they look back and what their life looks like today. They see this movie as an opportunity to tell their story and preserve their legacy.
Season Awards #17 Shortlist:
Best Feature Documentary
