Human
Cecilia Marie Hökenschnieder & Anastasiia Roshuk
| Germany, Poland | 2025 | 2:55 min. | Color | Sound

What does it mean to be human? What is aliveness? What is joy? A poetic exploration of the poem “You Know That You Are a Human Being” by the Ukrainian poet Vasyl Symonenko.

Cecilia and Anastasiia met during their master’s studies at Film University Babelsberg. Anastasiia is a cinematographer and photographer from Kharkiv, Ukraine, based in Germany. Her work spans narrative film, commercials, music videos and photography. Cecilia is a Berlin-based artist, animator and filmmaker exploring poetic storytelling, 16/35mm animation, identity, relationships, motherhood and twins.

Equal
Tom Bessoir
| 2025 | 3:47 min. | Color | Sound

EQUAL is a cinematic exploration of Richard Serra’s sculpture of the same name on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
The EQUAL sculpture consists of eight forged-steel blocks stacked in pairs. This simple form makes me think about space, mass, weight, and time.

Tom Bessoir studied mathematics and electrical engineering at The Cooper Union. He took advantage of the Art School, focusing on film theory and studying experimental filmmaking with Robert Breer. He has made 17 films to date and they have been shown around the world in festivals, galleries, and museums.

Bentwaters Frequency Test
Lewis Heriz
| Latvia, United Kingdom | 2025 | 3:47 min. | B/W & Color | Sound

Something was revealed during a series of optical sound print tests on a former US military airbase in rural Suffolk, UK.

Lewis Heriz is an artist-animator working with manual processes, non-rational strategies and chance encounters. His previous life as a graphic artist for music has led to a sound-forward approach to film-making.

Decay
Juan Camilo González
| Colombia | 2026 | 7 min. | Color| Sound

I am grateful to the Chinese for the invention of gunpowder — it feels as if they made it for me. Its discovery happened by accident, originally conceived as a way to ward off evil spirits. This film begins in China, then moves to an event in Cartagena, and ends centuries later in Bogotá.

Juan Camilo González holds a PhD from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, an MFA in Animation and Digital Arts from the University of Southern California, and a BA in Visual Arts from Javeriana University. He currently teaches Digital Narratives at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. His work moves between the creation of animated short films and interactive projects. He is also a member of “Moebius Animación”, a collective dedicated to the exhibition and study of experimental animation in Latin America.

Need and Desire
Francesca Svampa
| Italy, Spain | 2026 | 8:24 min. | Color | Sound

A gesture of erasure. A spell.
The cinematic act becomes incantation: a process that destroys and reconstructs simultaneously. Still memories become an "emulsional" landscape. Need and Desire is a cameraless handmade film exploring the materiality of emulsion through instant photographs lifted and transplanted onto a recycled Super 8 polyester strip.

Francesca Svampa is a visual artist based in Barcelona. Her practice revolves around handmade analogue cinema and first-person cinema, where the process itself becomes a form of inquiry. She holds a Master's degree in Essay Film from EICTV in Cuba, and has a background in Economics, Performing Arts, and Music.

Squint Your Eyes To Get A Better Picture
Kan Jonathan
| Hong Kong | 2025 | 4:24 min. | B/W | Sound

Squint Your Eyes To Get A Better Picture is an animated work created through hand-drawn charcoal, observing the drifting of the gaze and the interruptions of perception within everyday walking. Whether on the way home or on the way to meet friends, our attention is constantly switching between different things—from the phone screen to passersby brushing past; from a friend’s voice to the cars on the street and the traffic lights.
Squint Your Eyes To Get A Better Picture seeks to capture not only visual information overload, but also a state in which the body and perception are continuously adjusting and adapting in everyday life.

Jonathan Kan (b. 1997) is a Hong Kong-based filmmaker and artist working in experimental animation and new media performance. His practice explores the rhythm and chaos found in reassembled animated footage. Through the slow, meticulous processes of analog animation—such as charcoal drawing, slit scanning, and photo manipulation—Jonathan investigates the materiality of time and image. His work often unfolds gradually, shaped by repetition, texture, and imperfection, allowing emotion to emerge through subtle shifts and layered movement. Rather than pursuing polished narratives, he is drawn to the quiet resonance of process, gesture, and duration.

The Absolute Mark
Melissa Friedling
| 2026 | 12 min. | B/W | Sound

In a 1917 essay, Walter Benjamin describes the nature of the mark as possessing a pre-linguistic essence that aligns with the mystical and the emergent. Across two border-region landscapes, ecstatic inscriptions appear like hieroglyphs, conjuring transmissions beyond the limitations of territoriality and meaning. Asemic shadows cast over damage and despair.

Melissa Friedling is a film and media artist, scholar, and educator interested in the mediated jumble of all matter. Her creative work has been presented at international festivals, galleries and museums. She lives in Brooklyn and is an Associate Professor of Filmmaking at The New School in New York City.