Interviews

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.

In The Turtle, director Joe Bongiovanni turns an intimate portrait of a marriage into an exploration of vulnerability, masculinity, and the emotions we struggle to express. Drawing in part from Bongiovanni’s own experiences as a combat veteran, the short follows Barbara and Tony as seemingly ordinary moments begin to expose the emotional distance beneath their relationship.

Drawing from his own family history, writer-director Nicholas Paskhover turns an intimate story of love and memory into something increasingly unsettling in Dance with Me. Inspired by his grandfather’s experience as a Holocaust survivor living with dementia and his grandmother’s devotion through his final years, the short moves between past and present as trauma begins to reshape reality.