Hold the Dream (China) by Xiaoyue Zhang

"Hold the Dream" tells the story of Yuan Mengjie, a high school student passionate about filmmaking, who struggles to balance his academic responsibilities with his dreams. Through Yuan Mengjie's journey of growth, the film portrays the hardships and beauty of pursuing dreams in youth, conveying the positive message of persevering with one's aspirations and bravely chasing them.

Running time: 00:18:55

Home (Belgium) by Hanne Schillemans, Ralph Timmermans

Home is a short film about the fragility of life and the virtue of solitude. A faceless figure attempting not to resist the endless waves of pointlessness. Home explores the tension between presence and absence within the strange choreography of existing. The protagonist’s nudity, devoid of eroticism, emphasizes vulnerability and the human form as a part not nature, reinforcing the film’s existential themes.  The figure remains faceless, allowing her to become anyone — or everyone, shifting the focus away from personal identity and stressing instinct over intellect, being over persona. Home oscillates between the micro and the macro, between intimacy and vastness. Ants crawling with tireless precision, the sun rendered in cosmic proximity. In this interplay the human body becomes just another element: fragile, raw, exposed and dwarfed by the enormity of the natural world. Home meditates on aloneness not as absence, but as condition. It invites the viewer to witness a body moving through a universe that does not look back. Accompanied by music that is as raw as it is emotional, the film does not conform to conventional cinematic structures but instead allows the audience to immerse themselves in the rhythm of isolation and the ebb and flow of meaning in an indifferent world.

Running time: 00:11:29

Benny (Belgium) by Aron Quadu

When a child from his theater group disappears without a trace, passionate but eccentric teacher Benny unexpectedly finds himself in the sights of the police - and must prove that his life is not an act.

Running time: 00:09:00

Hu Li Jing : The Fox Spirit (United States) by Alena Saveleva

In a distant wild forest in China, there dwelt Hu Li Jing, the Fox Spirit. Once bored with her own immortality, she decided to challenge her liminal, partly demonic and partly human, essence. Through the ritual of abstinence from hunting for men's hearts for one thousand days, she rediscovers her femininity. But stepping into the human world piecefully, she gets misunderstood and faces violence.

Running time: 00:04:10

Ice Breath (Romania) by Leonard Alecu

Between 2015 and 2024, Leonard Alecu filmed the melting icebergs off Greenland's East coast. Sailing dangerously close to icebergs, Alecu handled his camera to record the ice masses yielding to the ruthless ocean. Filmed in black and white, Ice Breath is a cinematic poem whose only elusive actor is the filmmaker's gaze. In 43 minutes, a sequence of flat pictures turn into dynamic tableaux, an existential journey from genesis to extinction. The hypnotic feature of the film is enhanced by the soundtrack Become Ocean, a haunting composition by John Luther Adams suggestive of a relentless tidal surge, of melting polar ice and rising sea levels. Become Ocean received critical acclaim, earning the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the 2015 Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. More than an environmental documentary, Ice Breath and Become Ocean is an experimental fusion exploring the vast, inscrutable meanings of climate change. 

Running time: 00:42:50

Dragonfly (China) by Siyang Liu

Great-grandson Zhou Zihang has only two memories of his great-grandmother - her funeral and a contact. Unable to remember season and weather, he only remembers the persimmons that were handed to him and the unexplained crying

Running time: 00:19:27

Release (Hungary) by Zoltan Gergely Szabo

A young man is in prison instead of his brother because he took the punishment on his behalf. A mysterious visitor arrives to persuade him to make a new confession. However, the tempter fails to achieve his goal.

Running time: 00:10:09