The Nightingale and the Rose - María Paula Ríos
5:00, Digital, Color, 2025, Mexico

“The Nightingale and the Rose” is a stop-motion adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s story that blends photography, animation, and a colorful aesthetic to reimagine this tale, which is as beautiful as it is tragic. Filmed on a fully handcrafted set—where the animation and effects are created in-camera through artisanal techniques—the short film builds a magical universe where human and fantastical characters coexist in a poetic reflection on love.

María Paula Ríos Noriega is a Guadalajara, Mexico–based photographer and visual artist with over 15 years of experience. Originally from Xalapa, Veracruz, she grew up in Hermosillo, Sonora, and studied Visual Arts with a specialization in Photography at the University of Guadalajara. She is a member of the collective Mirada Tapatía, with whom she has exhibited across Mexico.

On Hold - Delia Hess
7:11, Digital, B&W, 2025, Switzerland

A young woman is stuck in the hold queue of a telephone hotline. A surreal episodic short film about the absurdities of urban life and the frustration of a paralysing standstill.

Delia Hess studied animation at the Lucerne School of Art and Design in Switzerland. Since her graduation in 2012 she has been working independently on her own short film projects as well as on commissioned films and illustrations. She lives and works in Lucerne.

Nuno - Nuno Taborda
4:20, Digital, Color, 2025, Portugal

Nuno, a young man, tries to understand how his destiny connects with the story of his long-dead uncle, whom he never met.

Nuno Taborda is a 21-year-old Portuguese animation director. The short animation “Nuno” is his debut, and it was selected for the Brand New Competition at IndieLisboa 2025.

Formless Love - Lingfeng Hao
3:33, Digital, Color, 2025, China

This film contrasts my romantic experiences with societal phenomena, critiquing modernity's alienation of love. True love remains unknowable and ungovernable—it cannot be controlled or calculated. Love is neither desire, spectacle, nor commodity, but an adventure into the unknown, even into the void.

Lingfeng Hao graduated from China Academy of Art's Animation Dept., now applying for international graduate programs to explore the boundaries of animation.

Evening Escapades - Chantal Rousseau & Darcy Tara McDiarmid
4:00, Super8 & Digital, Color, 2025, Canada

An adventurous rabbit undertakes an enchanted evening escapade through a mysterious forest trail. The rabbit encounters dreaming wolves, and other mischievous animals as he navigates a midnight mushroom garden. Evening Escapades is a combination of animated elements and Super 8 footage that was shot in and around Ddhäl Ch'èl Cha Nän / Tombstone Territorial Park in Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in territory in the Yukon, and then processed with plants harvested from the land.

Darcy Tara McDiarmid is a Han and Northern Tutchone artist from the crow clan. Darcy draws inspiration from nature, trying to capture the pristine beauty of our natural world. Chantal Rousseau is a queer settler artist from French Canadian and Ukrainian ancestry. Her work uses embodied experience and research to learn about specific ecosystems.

PRIKOSYMPHONO - Elena Gazi, Dolan Bailey, Alejandra Diaz, Leonardo Dal Fabbro
4:56, Digital, Color, 2025, Greece

Placed in Lefkada, an island in the Ionian Sea, a little girl finds a paper from 1955, that contains a list of objects that belonged to her great aunt and proceeds to ask her grandfather about it. He explains to her that this is the list of her dowry, an old Greek tradition, in which the bride's possessions were concede to the groom as a formal marriage agreement. Moved by this finding, he starts recalling memories of his childhood, witnessing his older sister Armenia, having an arranged marriage and leaving behind her family and the island for a better future.

Elena Gazi is visual artist, and a filmmaker born in Athens, Greece on the 1st of October 1999. She completed her BFA on Visual Arts at the American College of Greece with two solo exhibitions in Athens, and then she did her master’s degree on Stop-Motion Animation in Bau, College of Arts& Design of Barcelona. Her work is concerned with folklore heritage, cultural trauma, mythology of the nature, intimacy and fear. The documentary animation ‘PRIKOSYMPHONO’, is her first completed short film, in which her main roles were director of photography and scriptwriting, while the story was narrated by her own grandfather.

Kinder Doll: A Kindertransport Story - Christine Veras
7:52, Digital, Color, 2025

Kinder Doll is a stop-motion animation that follows a young girl on a Kindertransport journey as she leaves her home, family, and everything familiar behind. Holding tightly to her beloved doll, she faces the uncertainty of exile with quiet courage. Through delicate handcrafted puppets and miniature sets, the film transforms historical memory into a moving visual meditation on loss, resilience, and the enduring power of hope.

Christine Veras is a scholar, inventor, and animator, researching the integration of physical and digital technologies to explore the experimental possibilities of animation.

Grey Matter - Nora Snyder
1:20, Digital, Color, 2025

Grey Matter is a short stop motion animation about the myterious black box stuck inside my brain.

Nora Snyder is an independent artist and animator from rural Illinois, currently living and working in Kansas City, MO. She received a BFA in animation from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2024 and is currently a studio resident at Charlotte Street Foundation.

TACTILITY - Scott Harris
5:08, 16mm to Digital, Color, 2025

"Don’t throw away your suffering. Touch your suffering. Face it directly, and your joy will become deeper. You know that suffering and joy are both impermanent. Learn the art of cultivating joy." -Thích Nhất Hạnh

Scott Harris is a sound & vision artist based in Upstate New York. Creating spaces centered on trauma, consciousness, and processing of emotion, his work utilizes digital video, film, and synthesis to create environments that encourages viewers to join in acts of self-exploration by interpreting each moment through their own lens.

Three Birds - Zarja Menart
8:18, Digital, Color, 2025, Slovenia

A wise birdwoman sends three birds to guide a girl into the dark unknown landscapes of her inner world.

Zarja Menart is a director, animator, illustrator and art director. She has been working side by side with Spela Cadez for a decade, revitalising the animation technique of multiplane cut-out as the main animator on Cadez' multi award-winning films Nighthawk and Steakhouse. The short animated film Three Birds is her directorial debut film.

Flow of Being - Helen Unt
11:11, Digital, Color, 2025, Bulgaria & Estonia

A person is in the flow. They make a decision and keep flowing until all becomes one.

Helen Unt (1987) is an Estonian animator and filmmaker. She graduated with a BFA in Printmaking from the Estonian Academy of Arts, where she also completed her MFA in Animation. Since then, she has taught the development and production of animated films to children, school teachers, and animation students. Helen has recently developed an interest in woodworking and upcycling. She is currently looking for creative challenges in stop-motion, either modelling or animating.

Nothing we say can change what we've been through - Francesca de Bassa
3:22, Digital, Color, 2024, Italy & UK

"Nothing We Say Can Change What We’ve Been Through" is a journey through a character's mind as she navigates personal anxieties, struggling to express her thoughts and feelings. How easy is it to communicate emotions?

Francesca de Bassa, born in Italy, studied Literature and Philosophy at the University of Bologna, specializing in Contemporary Art History. She later mastered Animation Direction at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Turin. Since 2013, she has been a creative force in London, contributing to advertising, music, media, and virtual production. In 2023, she earned a Virtual Production certificate from NFTS and specialized in AI Film Direction in 2024. Her work is known for its eccentricity, quirkiness, and nonconformity, constantly pushing the boundaries of visual storytelling.