Independent Shorts Awards

1878: In a remote village, a vulnerable teenage girl faces the most terrifying night of her life when a threatening message mysteriously appears on her bedroom wall: You’re mine to kill.
Directed by Rain (Xiaolin) Zheng (USA)

A man tormented by jealousy faces his inner demons during an eerie therapy session where fantasy and reality intermingle.
Directed by David Reynie (USA)

“Setback of the Spirit” portrays the Palestinian cause through the life of a ‘Jeddeh’, a grandparent that finally returns with her grandson to one of the Palestinian cities after the demise of the occupation.
Directed by Sa’ed Arouri (Jordan)

Two college-time friends embark on a long drive on a Sunday morning, leaving their bustling city lives behind. As they amble through the hilly roads, they reveal to each other, their old longings and hidden pasts. Their rose-tinted nostalgia is broken and they come face to face with their imperfect lives.
Directed by Mrigank Dubey (India)

“Sherry” is an experimental documentary film which witnesses the private life of Robert, a 75 years old gentleman from Orange County. Every day, Robert transforms himself into a living doll, Sherry.
Directed by Eliane Lima (USA)

A man struggles to differentiate reality and fantasy in the wake of his girlfriend cheating on him.
Directed by Christopher Greening (USA)

Said is doing his first night of duty as a security guard under the bridge in the middle of Beirut. With only a walkie-talkie and a torch, he is trying to take his job seriously. At sunrise, the city will have crushed him…
Directed by Ahmad Ghossein and Lucie La Chimia (Lebanon)

The octopus believes that the hand in front of it is a prey, but it doesn’t know that behind every hand, there is an arm…
Directed by Shirin Abu Shaqra and Manuel Maria Perrone (Lebanon)

Desperate to escape Lebanon and settle in Europe, Lillo buys himself a Syrian passport and is ready to appropriate the Syrian identity to obtain asylum. However, what he might not be ready for yet, is everything that comes along with being a Syrian refugee today.
Directed by Rami Kodeih and Una Gunjak (France)

When hungover Bassem wakes up by the lake shore among his dead fishes, his sister Youmna, who he hasn’t seen for 12 years, is there, with a coffin.
Directed by Mounia AKL and Neto Villalobos (Lebanon)

When Adan Rodriguez learns from his dying father that his family has been plagued by a curse for centuries, he vows to end the misfortune. When he promises to guard an ancestral burial ground, supernatural forces challenge him to confront the world of the undead where no one is resting in peace.
Directed by Jax Price (USA)

A short experimental animation of an email discussion between two people exploring the complexities of the stages of sleep and waking.
Directed by Benjamin Gardner (USA)

Failed musician Vanessa comes home from her stale office job one evening to find a version of herself already inside her own house, and is unable to escape.
Directed by Simon Richards (UK)

Simon is an eight-year-old boy who seems to have everything from life. He’s a handsome child, he’s rich yet unhappy. He senses that there’s something wrong with his life and this leads him to wander off thanks to his fervid imagination. His greatest wish is to leave the materialistic world behind since he isn’t fond of it. That’s why the only present he wants for Christmas is for Santa Claus to take him away to live in his fairyland toy factory. At the same time, a secret that his family has been keeping for a long time suddenly comes to the surface and it is feared that the worst might happen soon. The expectation for the stroke of midnight on the night before Christmas is transformed into reality for everyone on the eve of something truly different. Something terrible that might happen.
Directed by Luca Machnich (Italy)