CANADIAN SHORTS COLLECTION #1
Birra Moretti Theatre (81min)
Director: Connor Jessup
Duration: 15’ 58”"
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
Arthur and Julian are roommates at an all-boys boarding school. Arthur is in love with Julian. Julian doesn’t have the time of day for Arthur. When Julian starts sleepwalking –– and the weather starts stirring –– it creates a strange, intimate space in their lives.
Director: Mo Matton
Duration: 13’ 05””
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
Rhys, a dedicated people pleaser, winds up at their boss’ gender reveal party with their two partners. The trans throuple soon realizes that they are dealing with more than they were prepared for and their ability to survive the event comes into question.
Director: Normand Junior Thirnish-Pilot
Duration: 9’ 05”
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
A father tries to save the soul of his daughter, lost in darkness.
Director: Christina Ienna
Duration: 6’ 20”
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
Gemma is a tenacious young woman trying out an exuberant number of activities and hobbies in her quest to find a special talent. Gemma represents the unspoken pressures and expectations that many of us put on ourselves when we are developing new skills.
Director: Andrea Ramolo
Duration: 11’ 41”
Country: Canada
Year: 2025
A new high-powered executive gets an unexpected visitor from her past where she learns how unbeknownst to her, she was a catalyst in a very disturbing moment during his adolescence.
Director:Andrés I. Estrada
Duration: 16’ 34”
Country: Canada
Year: 2023
Audio Caña is a charming grandfather and farmer who spends his days entertaining his loved ones with stories. When he boldly claims that a 19ft alligator is living in his pond, no one believes him. Audio and his granddaughter embark on a quest to hunt down the alligator.
Director:Roberto Zorfini
Duration: 7’ 29”
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
What is the difference between dreaming and waking when playing chess with a TRANSIT EXPERT? A death clerk on his first contract with his first client, DANIEL.
CANADIAN SHORTS COLLECTION #2
Birra Moretti Theatre (76min)
Director: Arshia Shakiba
Duration: 19’ 42”
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
In war-torn northern Syria, Who Loves the Sun delves into the world of makeshift oil refineries and the stark realities of life within this post-apocalyptic landscape. Mahmood is a prominent figure in these operations, navigating harsh working conditions and complex local dynamics.
Director: Nikki Rae Hallow
Duration: 14’ 47”
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
Growing up in an abusive, volatile home, drove Celia to marry a man like her step- father. Now seven years after her husband's death at the hands of her sister, the sisters meet within the confines of the prison. They're forced to face their inner demons as they seek redemption and hope for a future together.
Director: Clara Milo, Juliette Lossky
Duration: 20’ 56”
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
Set on an idyllic farmland, a child’s fascination for the light leads the way into this otherwordly tale structured around the passage of a single and ever-flowing sunbeam.
Director: Andrea Ramolo
Duration: 8’ 25”
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
During the coldest week of a Toronto winter, a homeless woman named Rose does all that she can to keep her new baby alive.
Director: Marc-Antoine Lemire
Duration: 14’ 59”
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
A sunny Sunday morning on a café terrace: Isabelle, an actor whose career is in a rut, meets Johanne, her agent, who might have a new part for her. Tension mounts both at the table and in the surroundings. Will expectations be met?
SHORTS INTERNATIONAL COLLECTION #1
Birra Moretti Theatre (83min)
Director: Gianpiero Pumo
Duration: 15’ 00”
Country: Italy
Year: 2025
Nasìr has the chance to realize his big dream and be admitted to a prestigious cooking school. To do so, he will have to cook the most important dish of his life. A dish that, behind a recipe, tells a story.
Director: Matteo Cirillo
Duration: 12’ 06”
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
In a world that exploits those who are honest, Pinocchio, now an adult, pays dearly for the values of goodness and sincerity he has followed. Constantly humiliated and mocked, he turns to a psychologist to try to understand whether, in a society that rewards the clever, it is worth staying good
Director: Redi Mazi
Duration: 18’ 59”
Country: Albania, Spain
Year: 2023
Dori is a 30-year-old boy with development disabilities. He dreams of becoming an actor but is not taken seriously; And so, the days go by… He lays down watching the starry ceiling reflected by the lamp in his bedroom, waiting for dreams taking him on the stage.
Director: Giovanni Nodari
Duration: 10’ 32”
Country: Italy
Year: 2025
Suddenly left alone in the world following a mysterious climatic event, a man and his dog must rely on each other to survive; but who are they really and what kind of relationship do they have?
Director: Fabio Garofalo and Jacopo Santambrogio
Duration: 10'
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
Night. Patrick has just lost his job. On his way home he vents to his mother on the phone, but after turning into a deserted alley... it's immediately a robbery. Dave and his knife appear. Then, Carlos also appears with his gun. An argument begins between threats, chatter, and a mother on the phone... Who will rob who?
Director: Amir Zargara
Duration: 14’ 37”
Country: Turkey
Year: 2024
Arash is a professional wrestler with dreams of representing his country and winning gold medals. The country is in turmoil and its people are suffering. Arash must decide between using his platform to stand up to tyranny or put his head down and remain silent.
Director: Caterina Tarquini, Francesca Sapio
Duration: 21’31’’
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
Tropical birds, venomous spiders, small rodents. Unusual colors and distinctive feathers drive up prices. But once the apparent legality wears off, one encounters a shadowy underworld of illegal practices. "Exotics Out of Place" explores the passion for unconventional pets and the potential risks they pose to both their well-being and our health. This investigation won the first edition of the Riccardo Laganà Award – Biodiversity, Sustainability, Animal Welfare, promoted by the Amici di Roberto Morrione Association in collaboration with RAI.
SHORTS ANIMATION AND EXPERIMENTAL
Birra Moretti Theatre (65 min)
Director: Alain Fournier
Duration: 8’ 28”
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
Beaupré the Giant marked his era with his 8’3” height. Gone too young and far from home in 1904, his journey as a phenomenon was only just beginning. In a stunning series of twists and turns, his mummified body will take more than 80 years to find its way home.
Director: Matteo
Duration: 9’
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
A clay sculpture comes to life in the darkness of a laboratory, surrounded by mysterious creatures…
Director: Alexa Tremblay-Francoeur
Duration: 11’ 12”
Country: Canada
Year: 2024
On a windswept hill, in a place still young and devoid of all life, an ancestral house builds itself and comes to life. It leads us to feel the passage of time, the transformations of its
Director: Alessio Del Pozo Temoche
Duration: 11’ 55”
Country: Peru
Year: 2025
Óscar isolates himself in his playful childhood. Caught between leaving childhood behind or playing alone, terrorist violence erupts, forcing Óscar to grow up overnight. Forty years later, he remembers it all as he walks back to his hometown, searching for food and shelter amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Director: Daniel R. Allen
Duration: 8’ 07”
Country: United States
Year: 2025
This reimagining of Greek myth explores the untold love between Hephaestus and Aphrodite. Amid betrayal and divine conflict, they find unexpected solace in shared passion—his for creation, hers for connection. A story of love beyond beauty and desire.
Director: Paolo Gaudio
Duration: 6’ 07”
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
In 1919 San Francisco, a man is standing on the ledge of a building ready to jump. Desperate, he relives in his memories the absurd and shocking episode that led him to the brink of suicide: the encounter with the monstrous and mythological Great Old One, DAGON.
Director: Patricia Marcoccia
Duration: 3’ 21”
Country: Canada
Year: 2025
A granddaughter returns to her vacant childhood home, where distant memories and traditions merge into the present, gently whispering: move forward, but don’t forget where you came from.
Director: Carlo De Togni
Duration: 4’ 54”
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
The Illusionist Dilemma follows Houdini and Méliès in a surreal encounter where fantasy and reality merge, revealing a deeper reflection on creativity, illusion, and the impact of technological progress.
Director: Danilo Ursini
Duration: 2’ 00”
Country: Canada
Year: 2025
A Parody of a TV news / talk show based on Aliens and mythical creatures set in 1969.
SHORTS INTERNATIONAL COLLECTION #2
Birra Moretti Theatre (83 min)
Director: Edoardo Brighenti
Duration: 12’ 58”
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 2023
Sara, an Iranian-Italian immigrant in London, struggles daily at a desolate car wash. Amidst mundane routines and fleeting encounters, Sara yearns for her dream of becoming a professional dancer.
Director: Ryan William Harris
Duration: 11’ 25”
Country: Italy
Year: 2023
Fleeing from war, Ukrainian child Lyuba meets Bruna, who takes her into a world of magic and illusion. But when the boundary between reality and fantasy is shattered, Lyuba must face her fears in order to regain hope.
Director: Ermir Keta
Duration: 13’ 55”
Country: Albania
Year: 2024
In a deserted city, former swimming champion Rudi lives with his daughter Ana. Rudi teaches Ana to swim, but she misunderstands his intent, dreaming of her own swimming success. One night, the truth comes to light.
Director: Dina Rezaei
Duration:14’ 52”
Country: Iran
Year: 2025
A middle-aged man seeks refuge from the harsh and soulless world of society by escaping to a world he has created for himself.
Director: Mauro Lamanna
Duration: 15’ 00”
Country: Italian
Year: 2024
To evoke the final moments of his life with his partner, Marco stages their last supper together: the most beautiful and the most painful.
Director: Damjan Kozole
Duration: 14’ 11”
Country: Slovenia
Year: 2024
Everything the actor plays in films later happens to him in real life.
ON DIGITAL PLATFORM
Director: Antonio Passaro
Duration: 14’ 00”
Country: Italy
Year: 2025
Maria and Carmine are a young couple, without children. She is lively and maternal, he is tenderly gruff. Maria cooks pasta with beans, and Carmine injures himself by opening a can. They don't know it yet, but they are experiencing what will become the most special moment of their lives.
Director: Michele Silvano
Duration: 14’ 10”
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
Lele, a young actor who has spent the last ten years in London, returns home. During a family lunch, he announces that he has decided to abandon his artistic career to study medicine. However, his choice clashes with the will of his father Alberto.
Director: Camilla Cattabriga
Duration: 15’ 00”
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
It is the story of Alma, of her intense journey of transformation in which she saw herself grow through courageous 'leaps'. It is the story of a little girl who becomes a girl, then a woman, taking us with her into her deepest experiences of pain and rebirth.
Director: Nikola Brunelli
Duration: 15’ 41”
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
Ascoli Piceno is home to “SUPERBI,” a store that has been producing the city's most famous fried olives since 1864. Fulvio has been running the family business for years, yet recently he has grown tired of it. But then a new fried olive store opens in town, run by young rival Ismail…
Director: Giulia Pelizzari
Duration: 13’ 38”
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
Anastasia is a young ballerina who constantly struggles with her parents' vulnerabilities and the harsh realities of the dance world. Alone and in pain, Anastasia will discover her own way to cope with her troubled relationship with her body and neglect.
Director: Gabriele Campanella
Duration: 15’ 00”
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
Laura and Marco, a couple who experienced the tragic loss of a child during childbirth, decide to go through the grieving process together. Once they reach the point where they feel ready to share their love with a new family member, they come across, abandoned child, Giorgio.
Director: Kimberly Scarsella
Duration: 12’ 43”
Country: Italy
Year: 2025
A self-centered college student faces her family’s shortcomings and her own unfulfilled dreams on a trip to discover her mother’s roots in Calabria. When her uncle promises her a chance to play a Stradivarius violin for the first time, she cannot anticipate what she might find.
Director: Francesco
Duration: 13’ 20”
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
Alma returns home and reveals tragic news to her parents. Lucio and Annamaria, taken by surprise, will find themselves facing a shocking reality: their beloved daughter has committed a terrible act. Does family really represent everything?
Director: Caterina Tarquini, Francesca Sapio
Duration: 21’31’’
Country: Italy
Year: 2024
Tropical birds, venomous spiders, small rodents. Unusual colors and distinctive feathers drive up prices. But once the apparent legality wears off, one encounters a shadowy underworld of illegal practices. "Exotics Out of Place" explores the passion for unconventional pets and the potential risks they pose to both their well-being and our health. This investigation won the first edition of the Riccardo Laganà Award – Biodiversity, Sustainability, Animal Welfare, promoted by the Amici di Roberto Morrione Association in collaboration with RAI.
