Interviews

In Heading to the East, director Lisa Ranran Hu follows a young Asian couple on one final road trip to the desert oasis where they first fell in love. Screened at the 2026 LA Shorts International Film Festival, the short draws on Hu’s own experiences of separation to explore the fragile relationship between love, place, and memory. In our conversation, she discusses translating fading recollections into images, discovering unexpected possibilities in the landscape, and using performance, silence, and editing to capture the distance growing between two people.

In Liquor Bank, writer-director Marcellus Cox follows a former Marine whose relapse just before a year of sobriety leads to a difficult encounter with his sponsor. Inspired by Eddie Mohler’s real-life experiences, the short draws on extensive conversations with veterans and people in recovery, as well as Cox’s own relationship with alcohol. We spoke with the filmmaker about finding honesty in his characters, creating tension within a confined space, and the importance of letting others show up for us.

Adapted from Nicholas Gurewitch’s wordless graphic novel, A Little Death transforms the Grim Reaper into the centre of an unexpectedly tender story about parenthood, mentorship, and learning to let another generation find its own way. Directed by Leto Meade and Jonathan Rockefeller, the hand-drawn animated short combines gothic imagery, dark comedy, intricate printmaking textures, and rare bursts of colour to create a world that feels both macabre and deeply human.

In Last Stand at Butte City, writer-director Natalie Schwan turns the familiar language of the Western inward. Set against the vast landscapes of 1880 Montana, the short follows Charlotte, an isolated rancher whose fight to save her homestead from the advancing railroad forces her to confront decades of buried grief.

Blending Aragónese folklore, dark fairy-tale storytelling, and playful surrealism, Mariana Ant transforms a tale of two wishes into a sharp reflection on labor, wealth, temptation, and authenticity.

In 2010, Iran banned a number of so-called “Western hairstyles,” including the mullet. Iranian-American filmmaker Hoj Jomehri turns that strange but very real chapter into The Last Mullet, a darkly comic short about Shervin (Bobby Naderi), an ordinary man whose beloved hairstyle suddenly makes him an outlaw.

In Gossamer, writer-director and actor Hamish Sturgeon transforms grief into a quiet process of reinvention. Set within the confines of a single house, the intimate short follows Jack as the boundaries between memory, performance, and identity begin to dissolve, gradually revealing Shirley as an expression of the self he has long kept hidden.

With The Farmer’s Daughter, director Melissa Bloom turns regenerative farming into both a family story and a philosophy of filmmaking. The stop-motion short follows a daughter fighting to preserve her family farm by rethinking its relationship with the land, while its production embraces that same principle through natural materials and eco-conscious methods.

In Creators, director Nikolay Sysuev turns the pursuit of online attention into a darkly comic study of recognition, responsibility, and moral drift. Following an aspiring content creator whose manufactured act of heroism spirals beyond his control, the short blurs comedy and discomfort while questioning what happens when life is experienced through the safety of a camera.

In 1981, filmmakers Andy and Carolyn London revisit the strange, uncomfortable terrain of adolescence through a memory shaped as much by feeling as by fact. Set in suburban Long Island, their Sundance-selected animated short follows 14-year-old Douglas through a birthday party that unexpectedly becomes a lesson in desire, masculinity, and the bewildering rituals of growing up.