Directed by Assel Aushakimova • 2021 • Kazakhstan

Assel Aushakimova (Welcome to the USA) shows why she is one of the most acute observers of contemporary Kazakh society with this droll satirical short. When a local reporter from state television is sent to capture a PR stunt from the Kazakh poli...

Directed by Jerzy Czachowski • 2022 • Poland

Jerzy Czachowski’s atmospheric and darkly comic short deftly explores themes of guilt and paranoia. An unnamed couple furtively bury a casket, only to have their secret exposed by a local farmer. From this sparse premise, Czachowski digs into Poland’s...

Directed by Asel Kadyrkhanova • 2020 • Kazakhstan

This hand-drawn animation from Kazakh artist Asel Kadyrkhanova probes the relationship between memory, trauma, and national history. Based on the memoirs of poet Gafu Kairbekov, the film reimagines the accounts of survivors of the man made famine...

Directed by Klaudia Fortuniak • 2023 • Poland

The strained relationship between a mother and her adult daughter sits at the heart of Klaudia Fortuniak’s knowingly tragicomic short. On the day of a family funeral, anxious mother Małgorzata (Ewa Skibińska) insists that her diffident daughter Zosia...

Directed by Kamila Rustambekova • 2022 • Uzbekistan

Kamila Rustambekova’s minimalist short captures the pride and pain of maternal love. In rural Uzbekistan, the bond between two young men leads the mother of one of them to make a heartbreaking decision. Dealing in averted gazes and implied long...