Borderline

Seishi Irimajiri, Denmark

This animation tells the story of a boy who creates borders on Earth. When these borders start moving without his consent, it fills him with rage…

student film

An Idea

Juan Paulín, Mexico

All sorts of things can happen in the search of an idea…

Airport

Michaela Mueller, Switzerland

Airports—the pinnacle of modern society, places where the limits of borders, security, and tolerance are constantly tested. For some the journey starts, for others it ends.

Winston

Aram Sarkisian, USA

A man is driven mad by his obsession and paranoia…

Stretch

Stephan Larson, USA

Stretch depicts a machine that is based on the design of surgical robots, but further refined specifically to stretch things. The machine does not care what it is stretching as long as its purpose is fulfilled.

Alphabet

Kianoush Abedi, Iran

 Best of Fest, Animation/Experimental

The people of this town have long since forgotten letters, words, and knowledge. They cannot see, hear, or speak… but the words are impatiently waiting to be sung again.

Lawman

Matthew Gentile, USA

In 1875, Bass Reeves is the first African-American to be deputized by the U.S. Marshal service. His encounter with two outlaws results in one carrying the other’s corpse across the desert. Bass Reeves is the greatest hero of the Old West you’ve never heard of. This is his story.

student film

The Outsider

Yudhajit Basu & Prithvijoy Ganguly, India

Against the mountainous terrain and misty landscape, this is a contemplative return of a man to his village after a decade away.

Vest

Lesley Manning, United Kingdom

A story of regret featuring a man in rush hour. Unbeknownst to anyone he is wearing a suicide vest. While walking through the crowds, he is disturbed by unexpected glimpses of humanity. Will he complete his mission?

Burning

Slimane Bounia, Algeria

Burning is a tangled story of contemporary Algerians caught in the struggle…much like the frozen fish that passes from hand to hand from the Kabyle mountains to the fishing coast.

Baka

Arvid Klapper, Germany

The life of 7-year-old Milica changes drastically when her grandmother falls ill. Milica’s uncle, Goran, is to bring her to Germany, but due to the strict border regulations, Milica will have to pass as Goran’s son and use his passport. Goran will have to gain Milica’s trust, who resists.

Achieve

Mohammad reza Minapour, Iran

Problems arise as an Afghan couple seeks to emigrate to Europe through Iran’s border.

Jacob and Malika

Vahan Bedelian, USA

A Muslim girl moves to the U.S. and falls in love with a boy next door. The star-crossed pair attempts to keep their relationship alive despite disapproving family and a hostile culture. This film is intended to promote compassion and understanding in a divisive political climate.

Forgive Me

Besim Ugzmajli, Kosovo

Bujar, a youngster, is manipulated by a kosovar Imam and joins the terrorist groups fighting in Syria. He asks his older brother, Agron, to send his wife to Syria. Agron, horrified by his brother’s actions, asks Bujar to return to Kosovo and tries to prevent his wife from going to Syria…

Are You Volleyball?

Mohammad Bakhshi, Iran

A group of Arab-speaking asylum seekers arrive at an English-speaking country border. They clash with border soldiers until a deaf child becomes a catalyst for better communication.

Pop

Caden Douglas, USA

In this off-beat comedy, Carol has to face the one thing she fears the most. It lies in wait behind a mysterious door at the end of the hall. Can she face her fear, go through the door, and burst through her crippling phobia?

El Amor Ciego

Pablo Martin Torrado, Switzerland

He walks in one direction, and she in the other…until they crash into each other’s arms. Love blossoms from this fortunate collision. But all of a sudden, her mask jams…

One Picture

Faustino García Zamora, Argentina

Joaquín, a clumsy photographer, walks through a park looking for an inspiring picture. He never imagined the picture would find him.

Please Hold…

Paul Gall, USA

A big corporation puts a man on hold.

For the Birds

Eric Henry Emma, USA

A weathered everyman builds birdhouses to pass the time. When a tarantula makes its nest in one of his precious homes, he is determined to get rid of it…even if it means destroying his creation.

Maelstrøm

Carlos Gómez-Trigo, Spain

Karl spins the spoon from his coffee. Something spins even faster inside Tony’s head…

The Being Who Fell from the Stars

Jacob Padilla, USA

An innocent alien crashes on Earth, bringing sound to a silent world.

student film

Deadbeat

Jesse R. Tendler, USA

After over 20 years with no contact, Ryan discovers that his absentee father is terminally ill and decides to confront him on his deathbed about his past transgressions.

Snow

Alex Murawski, Australia/USA

Award of Merit, Shorts

After an accident, Sam leaves an injured girl in a barren, snowy farmland. The weight of his departure presses upon him and he sets back out to find her—before it’s too late.

My Mom Was a Junkie Too

Justine Prince, Canada

A drug dealer spends a night with the young son of one of his clients.

student film

Tracks

Elina Fessa, Greece

Alexia is on her way to class. An accident is waiting to happen. Dimitra is trying to cope.

The Luck Bird

Sadam Wahidi, Afghanistan

Adam is a naive young man who fights with everyone. After losing his job, he seeks a solution from a wise man. The sage sends him to the desert and gives him forty days to hunt down the bird that brings good luck.

The Merciless Beauty

Michael Groom, United Kingdom

Johnny is a farmhand in the splendour of the English Lake District. His life of introspection is interrupted by the strange and mysterious appearance of a beautiful woman. Unsure if she’s a figment of his imagination, Johnny succumbs to obsession.

Misappropriation

Ana Maria Ferri, Spain

Coco is Sergio’s inseparable friend since Carla left. One day Coco takes him to Carla’s favourite shop, which seems to emit a powerful magic. This is a dark tale about how everything that makes you happy can disappear in the blink of an eye.

Ovum

Luciano Blotta, Argentina

Award of Merit, Speechless Shorts (Professional)

Far off in the recesses of a secluded coast, an isolated fisherman makes a discovery that will change his life forever.

The Mauritania Railway: Backbone of the Sahara

Macgregor, Mauritania

The Mauritania Railway is a 704-kilometer line linking the iron-mining center of Zouerat with the port of Nouadhibou. We journey through vast Saharan landscapes with the people who rely on the train for their survival.

La Cumbre

Dana Romanoff, Ecuador

La Cumbre unveils the reality of life as an amputee in the developing world. In partnership with the Range of Motion Project, we join world class mountaineer and wounded warrior Chad Jukes on a heartfelt journey to shed light on a public health issue.

Marieke

Thomas C. Johnson, USA

Marieke explores the life and craft of Marieke Penterman, acclaimed Dutch Gouda cheesemaker from Thorp, Wisconsin.

Cowboy Town

Jennifer Boles, USA

An impressionistic film about a replica roadside ghost town with automatons in rural South Dakota.

student film

Nobody Dies Here

Simon Panay, Benin

In Benin’s Perma gold mine, some dream to find something while others realize there is nothing to be found. Some dig relentlessly hoping to become rich, others die in the process. And a few of them say that here, nobody dies.

Eve

Filippo Tagliati, USA

An artist and a model go through a journey of renewal, transformation, and self-discovery in this non-narrative short inspired by the creative universe of French sculptor August Rodin.

Come In! (RC#01-BDJ)

Klaus Pamminger, Austria

Klaus Pamminger meticulously explores the symbolic motive of a film sequence from Luis Buñuel’s classic “Belle de Jour” (1967). White construction beams mutate from the abyss of an undefined black space into the abstraction of a staircase whereon the legs of Séverine Serizy ascend from the ‘monde’ into the ‘demi-monde’.

Wilderness Series

Karel Doing, United Kingdom

By using plants, mud, and salt in conjunction with alternative photochemistry, images are ‘grown’ on motion picture film. What at first glance is perceived as abstract turns out to be a concrete precipitation from phenomena that surround us in everyday life. The ‘aliveness’ of the images is underlined by Andrea Szigetvári’s evocative sound-design.

Untitled Painting #12

Carolina Jonsson, Sweden

A series of digital offsets in landscape painting create an abstract and sensual description of nature as both beautiful and hostile, recognizable and alienated. Untitled Painting #12 raises existential questions that may be about change—the space in between reality and dream and the alienation ahead of existence and circumstances.

A Journey to from Love

Abdullah Al-mulla, Qatar

After a love lost, Ashiq embarks on a surreal adventure into his inner being.

Silence

Sigin Ojulu, USA

In this experimental narrative, wannabe model Séma is tortured by Silence (personified as hands). Will Séma be able to express her voice at a crucial moment?

student film

House

Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson, USA

A meditation on emigration and immigration. Score by Icelandic noise artist, AMFJ.

My Heart is a Lure

Patrick Moser, USA

An experimental work about finding life in the unliving.

Nature Body Light

Monica Thomas, USA

An experiment in gesture, light, and form.

Drop Out Bodies

Ludivine Large-Bessette, France

In the silence and monotony of a residential suburb, men and women fall in a random and irrevocable way.

Another Winter

Francisco Javier Gomez Pinteno, Spain

A couple celebrates their tenth anniversary through a deep retrospective exercise. This dialectical, sincere, and bare confrontation renews desires, passions, and feelings towards another winter together…

The Girl in the Snow

Dennis Ledergerber, Switzerland

A day in the life of a foley artist.

Suspect

Davar McGee, USA

In the midst of a neighborhood power struggle between police and pedestrians, an innocent victim is treated as a suspect because of his appearance.

made in Minnesota

In the Red

Abby Cherney, USA

Step into an average man’s shoes when his life is turned upside down and all he can see is red.

student film

made in Minnesota

Wallflower

Caleb Curran, USA

No amount of time and space can separate you from the people you are meant to be with in your life.

made in Minnesota

Inside

Tony Perkins, USA

A psychological thriller about a girl wrestling with her past as the lines between reality and what goes on inside her head are blurred.

made in Minnesota

student film

Skinned

Vanessa M. Powers, USA

Paeder finds a Selkie, Aisling, and the two start a relationship. They’re happy, but there’s something wild in Aisling that may never be tamed.

made in Minnesota

student film

Shatter

Austin Swain, USA

Shatter takes place in a quiet, desolate room where a determined writer grapples with his passion and his past. Delving deeper into his own memories, he discovers haunting truths and long lost pain.

made in Minnesota

student film

Paprika

Gwen Francois, Luxembourg

In the mid sixties, a beautiful lady invites men to her stylish apartment. Her actions are spied upon by a man in black.

Rain

Martin Gerigk, Germany

Rain is an audiovisual synaesthetic study that attempts to present various aspects of human perception in a concrete and abstract sense. The concept for the representation of these facets is a rhythmicised auditive and visual web of sounds from 12 cellos, natural sounds and video sequences that express the miracle of sensorial experience and make the poetry of perception visible.

Gotterfunken

Bertrand Polivka, Australia

In the blinding daylight, characters stand immobile and mute. As the darkness approaches, they begin to move…

Terraform

Sil Van Der Woerd & Jorik Dozy, Indonesia

This music video tells the true story of the hardships and sacrifices made by the sulphur miners of Kawah Ijen, Indonesia, in order to provide for their family.

Justice

Marion Castéra & Kelzang Ravach, France

 Award of Merit, Animation/Experimental

This music video begins in a retrofuturistic urban jungle, in black and white, where humans are lost in their everyday actions. A gap appears between two hands and plunges us into the color that invades the city as if to resuscitate its inhabitants. Justice is a suspended moment that expresses the desire to see the whales emerge from our screens.

Stopgap in Slow Motion

Stephen Featherstone, United Kingdom

Photographs of performers in a disabled and non-disabled dance company come to life. The individual artists dance out of the photos and across table tops until the whole company meets and performs in unison.

Business is Brutal

Jack Thomson, United Kingdom

The norms of business negotiations are challenged to the limit in this thrilling and energetic dance film from choreographer and filmmaker Jack Thomson.

The Can Can

Michaela Schultz, USA

A visual music piece completed by students in the 2018 motion graphics class at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minnesota.

made in Minnesota

Singer

Paloma Lopez, USA

 Best of Fest, Speechless Shorts (Student)

An isolated peasant girl immerses herself in singers of the past. When she stumbles upon an open call singing audition, she jumps at the chance to be a star.

student film

Two Seconds of Silence

Felipe Sanz, Spain

 Best of Fest, Shorts

Javier is an exemplary pianist, admired by the jury. Isabel plays according to her intuition and is praised by the audience. When the two pianists meet in a final, their understanding of music changes the way they understand life.

Nimmer

Lieven Vanhove, Belgium

Award of Merit, Speechless Shorts (Professional)

The fragile world of a couple is torn apart by the turbulent sea. Orville is stuck in the house on a cliff while Imme struggles to survive on a rock in the lighthouse. Orville’s time is running out…

Voice

Takeshi Kushida, Japan

A lonely man falls in love with a woman’s shadow that appears on his apartment’s wall.

Robot & Scarecrow

Kibwe Tavares, United Kingdom

Best of Fest, Speechless Shorts (Professional)

A fairytale set against the backdrop of a heady summer music festival, where a robot and a scarecrow meet and fall in love.

A Father’s Day

Mat Johns, United Kingdom

Unexpectedly reunited with his daughter amongst the ruins of the world as they knew it, a father is determined to make this day special, even if they are already dead.

Disfluency

Laura Holliday, USA

A narrative case study and in depth look at rape culture and the aftermath.

An American Attorney in London

Darrell Alden, United Kingdom

When a criminal defence attorney visits the US Embassy in London, his appointment with a clinical consular official leads him down a dark and uneasy path to the last place on earth he wants to be.

Transmission

Varun Raman & Tom Hancock, United Kingdom

Welcome to Britannia. Together, we stand alone.

How to Build a Cloud

Carlos Barquín, Spain

Juan, while looking for his father´s watch, finds a box with a set of instructions on how to build a cloud out of thin air.

Corky

Ty Primosch, USA

A corkscrew with a screw loose battles a giant glass bottle to uncork seven magical lightning bugs trapped inside.

Rag Dolls

Justin + Kristin Schaack, USA

Playtime turns into uncontrolled shenanigans when a child discovers rag dolls in an antique chest. Her imagination runs wild, but for the dolls’ real-life doppelgängers, self-control is out of their hands.

made in Minnesota

Monday Day

Jayden Peterman, USA

A young boy named Nervin Jones lives through a less-than-exciting day with his brothers.

student film

made in Minnesota

Snacktime

Lacey Hasson & Matt Sveum, USA

A magical creature is accidentally awakened by a vain and oafish Spanish conquistador seeking to plunder treasure for himself. Once the two enter an abandoned temple filled with Peruvian gold and treasure, they soon discover that it is inhabited by a temple guardian, and hijinks ensue.

student film

Barking Brave

Matthew Kirkman, USA

A 6-year-old girl, armed with her wild imagination, must battle the bite of her confining cynophobia.

Dustin

Kristina Jaeger, Germany

An animated comedy about a pug who, much to his chagrin, has to arrange with an automatic cleaning robot as his new roommate.

A Time To Remember

Brian Michael, USA

Harry tries to give his girlfriend a surprise trip of a lifetime. Things don’t go according to Harry’s plans.

made in Minnesota

Leading Man

Brian Turek, USA

Trying to get “back in the game” at a singles party, Robert and Mickey have to overcome some serious conditions.

made in Minnesota

Echo

Sean Skinner, USA

Being stranded takes on a new meaning when you realize it might be forever.

made in Minnesota

The Long Goodbye

Matt Eckholm, USA

A young couple finds that the folksy mannerisms of family can be a front for something sinister as they attempt to leave and return home.

made in Minnesota

Abandoned

Steven Hoff, USA

Living on the street and losing all hope, a man finds solace in a new little friend. But when life has taken so much from him once, will he be able to sacrifice everything for the wellbeing of his new companion?

made in Minnesota

The Conquerer Worm

Paul von Stoetzel, USA

A short adaptation of the poem by Edgar Allan Poe portrayed on a stage. This unique interpretation utilizes horror imagery to illustrate Poe’s allegory of the horrors of mankind.

made in Minnesota

Kids Menu

Sean Skinner, USA

Heading out to eat with kids is easy…unless you’re the one having to clean up.

made in Minnesota