AWARDS

23rd edition TIFF 2025

PerspecTIFF JURY

BEST PerspecTIFF

EEL by Chun-Teng Chu

Taiwan | 2025 | 102′

 

The movie that happens in a world with atmospheric landscapes and sensual colours. Movie about loneliness and longing, about identity and searching for connection, movie about surreal mysterious love relationship that draws the viewer in to a strange and misty place. For its bold visual language and dreamlike storytelling, and very brave and delicate approach by director, jury decided to give award for best movie to ….

BEST DIRECTOR

Ibër Deari

Everybody Calls Redjo | North Macedonia | 2025 | 126′

In the art of filmmaking, the director masterfully unites creators and viewers, guiding an ensemble of actors to craft vivid characters, complemented by a sophisticated mise-en-scène. In the intricate genre of comedy, his sharp directorial insight reveals profound, subtle depths beneath the humor of everyday life. Through vibrant wit, he captures the essence of a young Albanian family in North Macedonia, illuminating universal challenges that resonate across borders, cultures, and time. His bold debut transforms a comedy into a deeply human drama, showcasing a nuanced, professional vision with remarkable finesse.

 

BEST SCREENPLAY

Dimitris Nakos

Meat | Greece | 2024 | 104′

The screenplay of the film constructs a realistic and convincing world, with a painful social human situation, effectively building dramatic tension that holds throughout the film.

The film connects the viewer to universal questions of identity, migration, and wounded patriarchal masculinity, in which violence is perceived as a legitimate language for resolving conflicts, but to this violence there are consequences. The character of Christos, the Albanian, is written with depth and sensitivity. Through him, the screenplay raises questions about the social divisions in which we live. What are the rights of a privileged person, compared to the obligations of the people that concerns as “guest”?

LIVE ACTION & ANIMATION JURY

BEST SHORT FILM
Eligible for 98th Academy Awards®

Wonderwall by Róisín Burns

UK | 2025 | 28′ | Live Action

A beautifully crafted film that follows a group of children facing, in their own way, the social realities of Liverpool in the 1990s. Through their eyes, we witness the struggles of the time, set against the backdrop of the Blur vs. Oasis rivalry.

An exceptionally well-made film, carried by a cast of young actors all equally talented. The re-creation of the ’90s is stunning and immerses us perfectly in that unique era.

 

BEST EUROPEAN SHORT FILM
Eligible for European Film Awards 2025

The Spectacle by Bálint Kenyeres

France, Hungary | 2025 | 17′ | Live Action

The film captivates with its magnetic atmosphere and masterful interplay between the real and the surreal. Through its distinctive humour and ironic lens, the film offers a sharp and layered portrait of society and the expectations that quietly shape our lives.

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

Blue Heart by Samuel Suffren

Haiti | 2025 | 15′

For crafting a brutally realistic yet hauntingly dreamlike universe, the film immerses viewers in a deeply emotional journey told from a singular, unflinching perspective. With a fearless blend of narrative genres, it redefines the boundaries of live-action storytelling, transforming intimate pain into poetic truth.

BEST ANIMATION SHORT FILM

God is Shy by Jocelyn Charles

France | 2025 | 15′

An unusually original story that holds together beautifully, thanks to its staging, artistic direction, and strikingly fresh character design. The film delivers a narrative that feels both innovative and deeply engaging.

DOCUMENTARY & EXPERIMENTAL JURY

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Yalla Parkour by Areeb Zuaiter

Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sweden | 2024 | 89′ 

Energetic and deeply human documentary that captures the power of movement as resistance, creativity, and freedom. Through the lens of Ahmad a young palestinian parkour filmmaker leaping across rooftops in Gaza and reclaiming urban spaces, the film tells a story that goes far beyond this risky sport: it reveals the resilience of a generation searching for identity, community, and dignity against the violence and systematic destruction of their land and their lives. True best documentary feature goes to…

Jury Award

Always by Deming Chen

USA | 2025 | 84′

The jury has decided to award a Special Jury Award to this film for the profound and delicate sensitivity with which it brings us into the inner world of a child from a poverty-stricken farming family in China. Six years in the making, the film balances fragility and strength, capturing fleeting moments of loss, resilience, and imagination with rare sincerity. Through its lyrical form and profound respect for its subject, the film reminds us that poetry flows everywhere, even from the heart of a country boy, and can be a cinematic tool that transcends all barriers and allows us to connect with gazes and visions of distant realities.

BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY

A View from Home by Mingzhe Zhou

 Canada | 2025 | 15′

In this film the seasons change and the years go the cinematic POV of the film redefines the meaning of home, homeland, borders, of our very art as filmmakers, and of everyone’s relationship with family and parental expectations. The paradise of the Western World can easily turn into a prison, into a dead end. This film engages with the urgent issue of migration, proposing a clear and relentless mode of storytelling that becomes a critique of xenophobia and racism, while offering a cinematic vision of escape for those who find, or feel, themselves trapped.

Special Jury Award

Sixty-seven Milliseconds by Fleuryfontaine

France | 2025 | 15′

With the aim of transcending the fragility of the boundaries between film genres, the jury has decided to award a special mention in a common ‘documentary and experimental film’ category to this film. A powerful cinematic investigation that transforms a tragic moment of violence into a profound meditation on visibility, responsibility, and the politics of representation. The film traces the trajectory of a bullet fired by a police officer at an innocent boy, through surveillance footage and digitally reconstructed images. With rigorous artistic language and a particular expressive force, Sixty-seven Milliseconds manages to transform an infinitesimal fragment of time, into a courageous denunciation of the abuses perpetrated by those who should protect the most vulnerable citizens.

BEST VIDEO ART & EXPERIMENTAL

How to be a Ghost in Bangkok? by Jing Zhao

Thailand, UK | 2025 | 10′

The winning short movie contemplates the fragility of relationships and the futility, of communication in our hyper-connected digital age. The author embraces the language of experimental video to reframe heartbreak as an aesthetic and conceptual inquiry. By weaving together performative gestures, fragmented narration, and playful visual strategies, the work destabilizes conventional storytelling in favor of an experiential form that is both humorous and haunting. Using social media as a cinematic ingredient formally and narratively.

STUDENT, BALKAN & IN ALBANIAN JURY

BEST STUDENT FICTION

Skin on Skin by Simon Schneckenburger

 Germany | 2024 | 30′

Flesh. Blood. Pigs. Chop. Power. Leave. Loud. Passport. Dead. Death. Kill. Love. Care. Away.

A mesmerizing film. Our winner for Student Fiction Short Film is

BEST STUDENT ANIMATION

Intermission by Milo Bonnard

 UK | 2025 | 10′

This film is not only a technical achievement but also a work that raises important questions and offers profound reflection on life and society. For the visual language and emotional depth, we award the best student animation short to ...

BEST STUDENT DOCUMENTARY

Accidental Animals by Leila Fatima Keita, Felix Klee

Germany | 2024 | 10′ 

For creating a contemporary experimental documentary using the desktop movie technique. Raising questions about the nature of images that are always relevant, we award

BEST STUDENT EXPERIMENTAL

Hangnail by Hou Lam Tsui

Hong Kong | 2024 | 7′

Heartbreak in a capsule of ruptured imagery: our winner for Best Experimental Student Short refuses boundaries, becoming both wound and healing, while interrogating the fetishisation of feminine death. We award Best Experimental Student Short to...

 

BEST BALKAN SHORT FILM

Upon Sunrise by Stefan Ivančić

Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain | 2025 | 15′ | Fiction

With its dramatic yet subtle intensity and remarkable technical and creative precision, this film impresses with its gravity as a cinematic experience. As an outstanding example of contemporary Balkan cinema, where every element is meticulously crafted to create an unforgettable impression, we award

BEST SHORT FILM IN ALBANIAN

Summer Emperors (Sommerkaiser) by Renato Balla

Albania | 2025 | 7′ | Documentary

For playing with the languages of cinema and music videos, exploring Albanian architectural archetypes and landscapes while having fun and entertaining us, we award the film

PANORAMA JURY

BEST GENERATIONs

Strangers in the Night by Vangelis Chatzopoulos

Iceland | 2025 | 18′ | Fiction

For the natural narration of intergenerational relationships, conveyed with simplicity and with an unexpected twist, yet with lifelike truth.

 

BEST NEW WORLD

Pentest by Tristan Lhomme, Benjamin Chevallier

France | 2025 | 20′ | Fiction

For the moral and human dilemmas we face under conditions of survival, conveyed through simple cinematic language and a narrative full of clashing emotions.

BEST DIVERGENT MINDs

Watch Me Burn by Sofia Spotti

 UK | 2025 | 20′ | Fiction

For the mastery in conveying the impossibility of communication and the consequences that stem from it, extending this impossibility to the physical, mental, and human relational levels while preserving the magic of cinema.

 

BEST PARADE

Midnight Longing by Mehrnaz Iranmanesh, Evita Amini

 Iran | 2025 | 17′ | Fiction

For the subtle portrayal of love longing, drawing the audience into empathy and understanding as they try to grasp what is spoken and what remains unspoken between the characters.

BEST AI FILM

The Eggregores' Theory by Andrea Gatopoulos

 Italy | 2024 | 15′ | Sci-Fi

For the ability to harness new technological tools and bring us, through them, an extraordinary narrative that strengthens our belief that technological inventions, just as cinema once did, will continue to evolve into artistic means of expressing the human spirit.

 

CAPTURE FRAME JURY

BEST CAPTURE FRAME

Beneath Which Rivers Flow by Ali Yahya

Iraq | 2025 | 16′

This frame is like a verse that fills the screen with profound emotions and reflects hidden stories. The use of light and visual expressions creates a strong sense of life’s inexorable flow, akin to the rivers running beneath the earth’s surface. The film’s photography reflects a harmonious balance between earthy beauty and human sensitivity. Every shot is meticulously crafted, evoking poetry expressed through images that reveal the invisible and uncover the inner world. Where human relationships have failed, in the profound empathy of sharing a life moment, this image shows the entire essence of being present, genuine, and grounded. The relationship with an animal, in this frame, is not just an everyday routine, but much more than a need; it is pure love and deeply lived. These elements together provide a rich visual and sensory experience, excelling at capturing simple moments and transforming them into unforgettable artistic expressions.

STUDENT CRITICS JURY

STUDENT CRITICS CHOICE AWARD

Ne Me Quitte Pas by Karim Huu Do

Spain | 2025 | 18′

The film stands out for its entwine of individual narration and collective memory. The intimate storytelling of its characters is a way of sensitively dealing with war wounds, migration experience and coping with racism. A clear and delicate visual language transforms successfully the personal history to a universal reflection. Therefore we decided to award this film.

SCREENPLAY CONTESTIFF 2025

Distribution Award by MAILUKI Films goes to:

Under the Abaya by Ahmed Saad Alnasser | Saudi Arabia

For its poetic imagery, emotional depth, universal resonance in portraying love, resiliente and loss, and the excellent pitch and presentation that truly captivated the audience, the prize goes to

SAYONARA Film Award goes to:

A Good Guy with a Gun by Gregory JM Kasunich | USA

For the clear and wellstructured pitch, which shows every part of the directors vision; for the strong writing, able to create both tension and engagement; and for the courage to tackle, in a current and necessary way, the debate on guns and their role in American society, the screenplay winning the Sayonara Award is …

BEST DEBUT SHORT FILM “Ron Holloway”

Anthéor by Patrice Joseph Blanc

 France | 2024 | 21′ 

 

Anthéor is a hauntingly evocative film, shaped by an atmosphere of profound melancholy that mirrors the solitude of its protagonist and communicates this emotion with rare authenticity. A memorable work, enhanced by exquisite artistic direction

 

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD

The Champ by Ermir Keta

Albania | 2024 | 15′ | Fiction

KIDS AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD

Amen by Orphée Coutier, Bettina Demarty, Kimie Maingonnat, Laurène Perego, Louise Poulain, Avril Zundel

France | 2024 | 7′ | Animation

TEENS AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD

The Ghosts by Federico Papagna

 Italy | 2025 | 15′ | Fiction

HONORARY TIFF AWARD

Rúnar Rúnarsson