2026 SHORT FILMS
FOREVERGREEN — An orphaned bear cub finds a home with a fatherly evergreen tree, until his hunger for trash leads him to danger. [ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE BEST ANIMATED SHORT]
WILLIE AND HIS PIGS — Every 9 months, rural Kentucky-based regenerative farmer Willie Houston brings home a small group of piglets. He raises them, names them, cares for them, and has to say goodbye. This subtle portrait challenges assumptions of masculinity in farming and explores who bears the emotional weight of ethically raising animals.
ANI LIU: EYE HEART WOMB — An intimate portrait of interdisciplinary artist and mother Ani Liu, whose work transforms pregnancy, care, and invisible labor into visceral artworks—challenging who gets to create, whose bodies are controlled, and how love, science, and survival are materialized.
AN ORDINARY INSANITY — Before becoming the world’s most famous whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg was a nuclear war planner who secretly removed both the Pentagon Papers and a vast archive of nuclear secrets. Before his death in 2023, he spoke candidly about his regrets and urgent proposals to rein in the Doomsday Machine. After spending fifty years opposing nuclear weapons and war—and being arrested more than 80 times for civil disobedience—Ellsberg uses this short documentary to expose the real risk of nuclear annihilation and how it can be reduced. An Ordinary Madness is both terrifying and galvanizing.
THERE’S SOMETHING I HAVE TO TELL YOU — A daughter, haunted by her past, helps her mom build a house in a small town in the Bahamas while struggling to reveal a devastating secret that’s kept them divided for as long as she can remember.
THE VISIT — Its visiting day in a dementia care home. An old lonely man gets a visit that desperately seeks to bring out emotions and fading family memories. A short story about loneliness, empathy and hope.
THE LIFE WE HAVE — For over three years, Rob Shaver, 48, has run at least a mile every single day. Through rain, pain, and the weight of a terminal cancer diagnosis, his daily streak has become more than a habit — it’s an act of resilience, a step-by-step refusal to surrender to his disease.
CARE — When Ali is ordered to care for James, an elderly prisoner with dementia serving a life sentence, he expects nothing more than another degrading task. Instead, their unlikely relationship reveals the transformative power of compassion—and pushes Ali to reckon with the care he’s withheld from his own life.
PUZZLEAK, THE RAPE PALACE — When Ane finds childhood images of herself on the internet, buried memories resurface. She uncovers that she was secretly filmed during photo sessions, one of many victims of a celebrated photographer who remained protected.
IN EXCHANGE FOR FLESH — Corey Arthur and Sara Kielly, both incarcerated, allege that the U.S. government is sanctioning the sexual abuse of millions of Americans. These practices are largely hidden from the public because they take place in prison. In Exchange For Flesh reveals the state-sanctioned ritual known as the strip frisk; a daily practice that blurs the line between safety and abuse. The film uses unprecedented access to New York State prisons, recorded calls, and buried archival footage to transform contraband into testimony, and humiliation into resistance and healing.
THE MAN OF THE TREES — Daniel Balima is a 67-year-old horticulturist in Tenkodogo, Burkina Faso, who has worked in his family nursery since childhood. After contracting polio and losing the use of his legs, Daniel chose a life of dignity through work rather than begging. Moving on his hands, he tends his garden each day, supporting his family and helping pay for his children’s and grandchildren’s education.
SAFFRON — A scared Sikh teenager ventures through paranoid and hostile NYC - confronting misdirected Islamophobia, and doing something life threatening to honor his family.
BRIDGE TO REDEMPTION — Bridge to Redemption is the gripping true story of Briana Brown—the only known survivor of a jump from the 155-foot tall Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Through raw interviews, intimate memories, and harrowing first-person accounts, the film traces Briana’s journey from a seemingly happy childhood and a passion for music to the crushing weight of depression, perfectionism, and isolation that nearly claimed her life. Her miraculous survival sparks a long, painful, and ultimately transformative recovery—one that reshapes her relationships, her sense of purpose, and her understanding of unconditional love.
MAGAN’S FARE — Magan’s Fare follows a rideshare driver who returns an elderly woman to her nursing home on a cold December day, only to discover her bed has been given away. Forced to improvise, Magan must decide how far he is willing to go to help her.
PRISON AND TIME — Animated excerpts from an essay by writer and activist Marvin Wade explore his 25 years of incarceration—and the growth he achieved in spite of, not because of, the inhumane prison system surrounding him. Through personal reflection, the film offers an intimate portrait of resilience, creativity, and transformation.
THE CHILDREN OF DISSENT — A meditation on where we come from, what we inherit, and how we find our voices in a world that often demands silence, the film challenges the idea that belonging requires conformity. Bridging storytelling and activism, it confronts the myth of the model minority and shows how resistance, representation, and memory shape a collective pursuit of justice.
AMERICAN SIKH — The animated true story of a turban-wearing American Sikh, who after a lifetime of facing prejudice, self-doubt and violence, finally finds acceptance in a superhero costume.
MUD BELOW, SUN ABOVE — Amidst Hanoi's suffocating pollution, an informal sector of elderly female recycling workers endure harsh working conditions and societal stigma to address the city’s growing waste crisis. Among them, 64-year-old Bể harbours precious insight into the hidden costs of Vietnam’s economic boom.
HOLD — An early morning phone call propels a mother and daughter on a path toward connection and the mysteries held in the act of letting go.