Category: 2025 Official Selections

2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

A young dancer is torn between her lifelong love for ballet and a new passion that has emerged in her life. Is this passion truly new, or is it merely a reflection of years of trauma? She falls in love at first sight with the most beautiful pair of red high heels she has ever seen, but the only available pair is too small for her feet. The more she wears them, the more they hurt her. Eventually, she faces a difficult decision: should she choose ballet pointe shoes or the alluring red high heels?

Director(s): Rafaela Goncalves, Leandro Stephan
Writer(s): Rafaela Goncalves
Producer(s): Rafaela Goncalves
Key Cast: Rafaela Goncalves, Sagan Barbour, Leandro Stephan, Nathalie Zagar

Country: United States

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2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Documentary

The topic of recidivism is told through the narrative of David, who has been in and out of prison his entire life, but through re-entry and gang intervention services like Homeboys, he has found redemption and grace.

Director(s): Dima Puchkarev
Producer(s):Dima Puchkarev
Key Cast: David Zamudio, Aya Gruber, Greg Boyle, Shia LaBeouf

Country: United States

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2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Animation

In a surreal suburban hell, Frank lives through eternal loops, until a self discovery forces him to break away from his nightmare.

Director(s): JOHNNY GALVAN
Writer(s): JOHNNY GALVAN 
Producer(s): JOHNNY GALVAN
Key Cast: Michael Malconian

Country: United States
Los Angeles Premiere

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2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

A disabled wheelchair user tries to solve the biggest question in physics, a solution to the theory of everything, while struggling with the cigarette butts and other rubbish falling onto his apartment balcony from the neighbours above.

Director(s): Leo Berkeley
Writer(s): Leo Berkeley
Producer(s): Leo Berkeley
Key Cast: Leo Berkeley

Country: Australia
Los Angeles Premiere

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2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Horror

After a father fails to remove his ankle monitor, he’s pursued by his parole officer and a hellbent demon who’s after his soul.

Director(s): Lukas Anderson
Writer(s): Lukas Anderson, Elio Andres
Producer(s): Alexus Es
Key Cast: Cole Kelley, Courtney Powell-Walker, Everett Anderson

Country: United States

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2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

A novelist dissatisfied with life and marriage explores her desire and asks for an affair.

Director(s): Olivia Lige Wuri
Writer(s): Olivia Lige Wuri
Producer(s): Anna Yuxing Lei, Yunyi Zhu
Key Cast: Danielle Keaton, Christopher Dietrick, Charlie Townsend

Country: United States
World Premiere

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2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Sci-Fi

Two sisters confront their differing views on genetic engineering as they prepare to leave Earth with the final human survivors.

Director(s): Michael Vaughn Hernandez
Writer(s): Darren Bailey, Renée Veronica Freeman
Producer(s): Renée Veronica Freeman, Michael Vaughn Hernandez, Kally Khourshid
Key Cast: Renée Veronica Freeman, Folami Williams

Country: United States
World Premiere

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2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Horror

In this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, Carter, a grief-stricken young man, and his mentor Warren, an elder female professor of the occult, search for a portal to the underworld in an abandoned cemetery.

Director(s): Xander Copp
Writer(s): Meg Rodgers, John-Paul Kaczur
Producer(s): Xander Copp, Bradley Cherry, Adam Schoales
Key Cast: Carson MacCormac, Elizabeth Saunders, Brian Quintero

Country: Canada
Los Angeles Premiere

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2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Animation

Becoming an Oyster is a haunting animated journey through a boy’s eyes, where grief, addiction, and a crumbling planet intertwine in a surreal search for healing and meaning.

Director(s): Elizabeth Schneider, Michael Covello

Country: United States
Los Angeles Premiere

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