By Yourself world première at Fantastic Fest 2026, paired with Nikias Chryssos’ Bloody Tennis “So none of it’s real, nothing’s real with you anymore,” Elliot (Tessa Jean) tells her girlfriend Syl (Zelda Adams), “You just don’t want to be alone.” This apparent overture to a breakup is in fact a flashback, as Syl now really…
Olha Savchenko is a student and member of The Centaurs, an experimental (yet practical) workshop established in 2024, during wartime, by Ukrainian filmmaker Dmitriy Tomashpolskiy at the Institute of Screen Arts of in Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University. Centaurs like Savchenko adapt classical myths or literary works into short films,…
The title of Paul Holbrook’s latest short film is polysemic. Tor Lewa, or تور لیوهوه, is the Pashto for ‘Black Wolf’, alluding not just to the ferocious canine monster that dogs protagonist Billy (Frank C. Keogh, also the film’s co-writer) when he is otherwise alone on the streets of Bristol at night, but also to…
Birdcall Canadian première at Fantasia, 31 July 2026 Justin Calandriello’s Birdcall opens with an information video from the future. A cute ornithoid puppet (voiced by Casey Marie Eckler) introduces herself as Avery, a member of the (fictive) species Avis Anthropophaga (or ‘human-eating bird’), and describes the effects of the disease Parasitica Rapax, that a bird’s…
Pablo Boy can be watched here It is 1999 in Florida, on the eve of the New Millennium. In a storm-swept, run-down coastal town full of boarded-up shops, smashed windows, trailer parks, and makeshift tents for the homeless, teenaged Lindsey is longing for a way out, and for change. “Maybe,” he says in voiceover, “if…
Lady Puritan at Chattanooga, 19 June 2026 Lady Puritan begins with a nightmare. Through a confusing kaleidoscope of grass blades and petals in close-up, we glimpse two contrasting women. The first, the protagonist played with tangible intensity by Gustine Füdickar – who also co-wrote and co-directed with Justin Streichman – is completely naked, washing herself…
General Admission world première at Tribeca, 5 June 2026 Sometimes a first step towards new beginnings is also a stagger. Just out of a long-term relationship after catching her boyfriend cheating on her, heartbroken Kelly (Nina Dobrev) is still struggling through her conflicted feelings about him and her persistent sense of co-dependency. Yet she is…
Like Father, Like Son? (Sådan Far, Sådan Son?) is streaming in Online Short Showcase 1 at Panic Fest 2026 Like Father, Like Son? (Sådan Far, Sådan Son?) opens with an arresting dream, premonition or memory. As a distorted song plays on the radio of a car parked in the middle of nowhere, Simon (Ludvig Deltin)…
Harvie Krumpet first published by Movie Gazette, 4 Apr 2005 Though only a minute in length, Adam Elliot’s first student film, the hand-drawn Human Behavioural Studies, Series One (1996), is like a calling card for the Australian animator, laying out in its three remarkably compressed character studies a preoccupation that would typify all his future…
Souvenir had its North American première at SXSW, 13 March 2026 “Will you miss me when I’m gone?”, a female voice is heard asking at the beginning of Renée Marie Petropoulos’ Souvenir, co-written with Yingna Lu. Her words are accompanied by a series of tactile close-ups – a hermit crab scuttling on a bared belly,…
Matt Fitch and Chris Baker, known collectively as Fitch/Baker, together write and direct strange short films – like the multi-award-winning Backmask (2024) – as well as penning the odd graphic novel. They are self-avowed ‘wizards’ and ‘chaos magicians’, and in their latest short The Trick, they truly live up to those titles. The Trick opens…