Finalists 2023

DRAMA

FINALISTS

Become The Wounded
A couple tries to mend old wounds but realize it’s not about fixing things – it’s about true empathy.
Director: Amir Zargara
Country: Canada

Cinnamon
The story of a newly elected mayor who has been invited to attend a chat show. Whilst in the waiting room, awaiting to go to the interview of the chat show, the young mayor is reminded by the smell of cinnamon where he remembers observing physical and psychological abuse perpetrated by his father to his mother.
Director: Shahid Kamal
Country: United Kingdom

Deer
Ehsan a nine-year-old boy lives with his family in a far village in the North of Iran. His younger brother has a serious illness that cannot be cured by doctors. From an old story he believes that a death angel comes to get his brother’s life in the shape of a deer.
Director: Hadi Babaeifar
Country: Iran

ESTRO
In a timeless, empty and minimalist environment, ESTRO shows the WRITER´s creative process, who falls for the main character of his book: WOMAN, a blues singer.
Director: Daniel Tupinambá
Country: Brazil

People Watching
Two women on the edge of loneliness find each other on a bench at the zoo where the lush imagination of people-watching and their intimate connection awaken the wild of their individual longing.
Director: Kate Campbell
Country: Canada

The Third Defector
What seems like a simple assignment for a spy to keep tabs on an Iranian defector becomes a more complicated game of cat and mouse in the streets of Paris.
Director: John Gray
Country: United States

Till I Return
There is a strange tension in the air. An entire generation of young people is preparing
for departure to an unknown destination, far away from the lives they know, for a very
long time.
Director: Ramy Moharam Fouad
Country: Belgium

Voiceless
An international high school girl is trapped in and experiences a trauma nightmare that she never experienced before.
Director: Cindy Di Xin
Country: United States

Wherefore Art Thou?
An original reimagining of Romeo and Juliet's balcony scene— seen through the eyes of an elderly Juliet and the young nurse who embraces her at the end of her life.
Director: Diana Cossa
Country: United States

SPECIAL MENTION

Absolution
A man sees his psychiatrist for help with a difficult problem. The conversation takes a sinister turn, and all is not what it seems.
Directors: Lauren Spohn
Country: United States

Demanded Supply
A brother-sister assassin duo become part of a scheme much bigger than themselves, when a culture vulturing client calls an audible.
Directors: Sean Famoso, Dennis Williams
Country: United States

how I lost my virginity
Using her best friend's real-life experience of losing her virginity, first-time director Claire Chubbuck explores systematic sexual misperceptions in an award-winning short film - ultimately concluding there is work to do on all sides of the gender perigon.
Directors: Claire Chubbuck
Country: United States

Say Nothing
An undercover voodoo woman is devastated after losing her son to knife violence. Fed up with the youth crime, and tired of the police delay in apprehending the killers, she places a body switch spell on a jaded police officer.
Directors: D’Marie Dowe
Country: United Kingdom

Sob
Valentin and his wife Elena are sick with Covid-19 at its peak when the doors of the hospital are locked. Their last chance is to go to Vladimir Sergeevich, an old, retired doctor with Alzheimer's. Valentine, accepting his fate, asks to be taken home, but Elena, in desperation, decides to take this last opportunity.
Director: Ekaterina Gorbacheva
Country: Russian Federation