GSFF25 Index of All Films

S-Z

Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza

Mustafa Abu Ali

Palestine, 1973

A rare film by the legendary filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali, one of the founders of the Palestine Film Unit, the first filmic arm of the Palestinian revolution. Shot by a French news team, the footage was edited by Mustafa in Lebanon to produce one of the earliest films on the occupied territory in Gaza. 

 Arabic English 10 min 59 secs

Seeking

Ciara Flint

United Kingdom, 2024

Following the sudden death of her husband, grief turns a widow to the spirit world and psychic mediumship. 

 English 19 min 29 secs

She and Her Good Vibrations

Olivia Griselda, Sarah Cheok

Indonesia, Singapore, 2023

A stressed-out middle-aged woman discovers the wonders of a vibrator, but soon becomes addicted to solo pleasure sessions and loses touch with reality.

 None 10 min 48 secs

Shrapnel

Holly Barbour

United Kingdom, 2024

 English 14 min 58 secs

Skinflicker

Helena Gouveia Monteiro

Ireland, 2024

Hand-processed Super-8 footage of close-up bodies is digitally shuffled at random for a digital reinterpretation of the flicker film form. Rapid-fire, black-and-white stills of skin are accompanied by a percussion soundtrack played on the Irish bodhrán, itself made from animal hide.

 None 5 min 3 secs

Songs For Dying

Korakrit Arunanondchai

Thailand, 2021

Archival records of the uprising on Jeju, South Korea’s largest island, and student protests in Thailand are interwoven with footage from the artists’s grandfather’s funeral, in an exploration of the experience of accepting death and the perception of history.

 Thai English 30 min 18 secs

Stomach Bug

Matty Crawford

United Kingdom, 2024

A single father’s disturbing and mysterious illness begins to unravel as he struggles to cope with empty nest syndrome, leading to a grotesque finale.

 English 15 min 8 secs

Street Light

Le Reste n’a pas d’importance

Romain Dumont

France, 2024

During a documentary shoot, Cheun, a beloved traffic warden, clashes with a local inspector. On Rue Clignancourt, his resignation dims the street lights. In the darkness, a filmmaker must rediscover his humanity, while Cheun must continue to invent his cinema. 

 French English 15 min 58 secs

Swan Songs

David Arthur

United Kingdom, 2025

In the ruins of a forgotten park, an estranged father and daughter reunite over the music of Bach, Mozart and Handel but they must also face the devastating truth that has torn them apart.

 English 12 min 30 secs

Tellurian Drama

Riar Rizaldi

Indonesia, 2020

An eclectic essay film on the vital role of mountain in history, colonial ruins as an apparatus for geoengineering technology, and the invisible power of indigenous ancestral.

 Indonesian English 26 min 25 secs

The Air We Breathe

Lucas Chih Peng Kao

United Kingdom, 2024

Activist-turned-cleaner, Eliza, works at an air compound where oxygen is sold like electricity. Driven by the trauma of her past, she has to decide if she is to take the ultimate revenge on those that destroyed her life.

 English 13 min 57 secs

The Bird

Jules Ramage

France, 2023

In prison, slam poet Gauche documented daily life inside. Six months later, she performs the poems on-camera. They tell of institutional control over bodies, sexuality, the violence of imposed medical treatments and sorority as a means of survival.

 French English 11 min 39 secs

The Burden

Min Börda

Niki Lindroth von Bahr

Sweden, 2017

At a marketplace near a large freeway, various market traders (who happen to be animals) stave off boredom and existential ennui with cheerful musical numbers.

 Swedish English 14 min 10 secs

The Carp and the Child

La Carpe et l’enfant

Arnaud Demuynck, Morgane Simon

France, 2024

A child goes carp fishing, bringing his mischievous little dog with him. After they encounter a frog and a duck, chaos ensues, and he realises catching a fish is more difficult than he imagined.

 No dialogue 6 min 50 secs

The Disco – A Portrait of Simon Eilbeck

Alex Hetherington

United Kingdom, 2025

A sound and image portrait of Queer d/Deaf DJ Simon Eilbeck formed from 16mm film and location sound recordings encountering members of the Queer, Trans, alternative and non-binary communities who gather at his monthly disco ‘Hot Mess’ in Glasgow, Scotland.

 English 46 min 1 secs

The Eating of an Orange

May Kindred-Boothby

United Kingdom, 2024

In a large manor house, identical figures eat and move in unison. But everything changes for one woman when she receives an orange from an unknown figure. The mysterious object is about to transport her into another realm.

 English 7 min 29 secs

The Fall of Communism As Seen in Gay Pornography

William E. Jones

United States, 1998

A montage of video excerpts from early 90s adult films forms an unlikely portrait of Eastern Europe in socio-economic flux.

 English, Russian English 19 min 22 secs

The First Film

Piyush Thakur

India, 2023

In a small town in 1960’s India, where cinema is forbidden for women, a 14-year-old embarks on a quest to watch her first film.

 Hindi English 24 min 59 secs

The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing

Theo Panagopoulos

United Kingdom, 2024

When a Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wild flowers, he decides to reclaim the footage.

 None English 17 min 1 secs

The Hot Spot

Stuart Elliott

United Kingdom, 2024

Lorna is on a mission to get her Dad’s memorial bench moved from its current location: a hot spot for doggers.

 English 5 min 47 secs

The Inescapable Desire of Roots

根欲

Li Shuen Lam, Mark Chua

Singapore, 2024

A man with hair growing wildly over his body is taken by a mania of ecstasy and anguish. Overwhelmed by the explosive jubilance of its sprouting, the hair becomes a means of discipline and punishment against him.

 Mandarin Chinese English 5 min 39 secs

The Land Where Ghosts Could Speak

Tianhui Wu

United Kingdom, 2024

Through sleep talking, the filmmaker attempts to uncover secrets of her past, hidden deep in her subconscious. Exploring trauma both on a personal level and an intergenerational one, she grapples with the conflict between the individual and the state.

 Chinese English 14 min 3 secs

The Meaning of Life

Don Hertzfeldt

United States, 2005

Don Hertzfeldt’s classic 2005 animated short follows the evolution of life on Earth over the course of a few billion years.

 English 12 min

The Motherfucker’s Birthday

Saif Alsaegh

United States, 2024

Saddam dances, Bush dances, so what’s left for the Iraqi people except to join in? When everyone begins to dance, the horror endured by people living under powerful political leaders is brought to light.

 English 6 min 48 secs

The Night Tunnel

Le Tunnel de la nuit

Annechien Strouven

Belgium, 2024

After digging a tunnel on the beach, two kids from different sides of the world find each other. Together, they dig their way to the North Pole, where they discover a magical route back home.

 No dialogue 8 min 58 secs

The Nobody

Razan Madhoon

United Kingdom, 2024

UK Airport Immigration Officer Sarah begins to question her role and institution when an unidentified passenger, whom Sarah believes to be an illegal immigrant, dies on an arrival flight from Egypt. 

 English 10 min 56 secs

The Poison Cat

Tian Guan

China, 2024

In southwest China, hunter Tai connects the eerie cries in the forest and the strange occurrences in the village with his wife’s unusual behavior. His age-old way of life is crumbling, as prophesied in the legend of The Poison Cat.

 Chinese English 17 min 46 secs

The Secret Garden

Nour Ouayda

Lebanon, 2023

When the inhabitants of a city wake one morning to find that never-before-seen trees, plants, and flowers have erupted throughout the streets, Camelia and Nahla decide to investigate their origins.

 Arabic English 27 min

The Source Is a Hole

Angelo Madsen

United States, 2017

An attempt to remove a lodged tampon, and a barrage of tangential encounters, shape a filmmaker’s reflection on transgender mourning.

 English 25 min 30 secs

The Sunset Special 2

Nicolas Gebbe

Germany, 2024

Two families meet on an exclusive luxury cruise. As artificial facades dissolve, psychedelic dreamworlds unfold and reality is unveiled.

 English 18 min 52 secs

The Test

Benjamin Sutton

United Kingdom, 2024

A man gets more than he bargained for from a routine eye test.

 English 3 min 27 secs

The Watergaw

Lewis Cranston

United Kingdom, 2024

Through his attempts to initiate the sale of his ancestral land in the Scottish Borders, a man finds himself confronted by both his own past and that of the mystical landscape surrounding him.

 English 16 min 7 secs

The Weird Relationship

Yejin NAM

South Korea, 2024

A child tries to befriend some cats, but discovers it is harder than he thought. After being bitten, the child cries, forming a sea from her tears in which she meets a variety of interesting creatures.

 None 3 min 30 secs

Their Eyes

Nicolas Gourault

France, 2025

Online micro-workers from the Global South are paid to teach the AI of self-driving cars to navigate the streets of the Global North. Their fantasies for collective action are shown through  a combination of their testimonies and screen recordings.

 English, Spanish English 22 min 36 secs

This Haunting Memory That Is Not My Own

تطاردني ذكرى ليست لي

Panos Aprahamian

Lebanon, Germany, Qatar, 2021

Along the shorelines of Beirut and Lebanon’s Karantina district, the ways in which economic growth and environmental decay are interlinked and entrenched in social and ecological injustice are brought to light.

 Arabic English 30 min 21 secs

This Werewolf Complex

Heather E Andrews

United Kingdom, 2024

An intimate discussion on the different forms of aura experienced, told through the voices of individuals who experience seizures in focused parts of the brain, resulting in sensory, physical and emotional disturbances.

 English 15 min 21 secs

To Exist Under Permanent Suspicion

Valentin Noujaïm

France, 2023

Claire, a businesswoman promoting a new skyscraper office in Paris’s La Defense, faces increasing scrutiny and isolation. The cold, grey offices amplify her loneliness, driving vivid dreams of setting the tower ablaze.

 French English 14 min 29 secs

To Keep the Mountain at Bay

Gelare Khoshgozaran

United States, Georgia, 2023

Poetry readings in Sausalito, California, explore exile as a space of collective difference and transnational solidarity in an homage to Lebanese-American poet Etel Adnan.

 English 9 min 30 secs

Towards the Sun, Far from the Center

Al sol, lejos del centro

Luciana Merino, Pascal Viveros

Chile, 2024

Two women in love search for their rightful place in Santiago, Chile, where the shimmering summer heat distorts spaces into surfaces and houses into textures.

 Spanish English 16 min 40 secs

Triptych

Sophia Ray

United Kingdom, 2024

A provocative artist plans to destroy a Bosch masterpiece, claiming it’s performance art. However, she discovers that the artwork conceals a dark secret from her past, portending a horrific reckoning from which she must fight to escape.

 Bulgarian, English, Serbian English 14 min 29 secs

Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?)

Suneil Sanzgiri

United States, 2024

A woman’s dreams become haunted by the Adamastor—a titan from Portuguese mythology who sought to destroy Vasco da Gama’s ship and prevent him from ever reaching India.

 English 35 min 43 secs

UNDR

Kamal Aljafari

Germany, Palestine, 2024

Repurposed archival footage of Occupied Palestine challenges the legitimacy of the land’s mainstream portrayal as deserted and still. Children play and farmers work as dynamite ruptures the earth.

 None 14 min 44 secs

Vox Humana

Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan

Philippines, 2024

When a man is found in the woods following an earthquake, a zoologist, a sound recordist and a news team grapple with the truth that he may be the cause of the natural disasters devastating the town. 

 Tagalog 22 min 11 secs

We Beg to Differ

Ruairi Bradley

Ireland, United Kingdom, 2024

In the underground world of diffing, an amateur motorsport akin to drifting, a community in Ireland finds solace in their passion as they navigate personal struggles and challenges both on and off the road.

 English 12 min 38 secs

What Remains

Belit Sağ

The Netherlands, 2018

Cizre, a primarily Kurdish town in Turkey on the Syrian border, becomes the setting for an exploration of Kurdish mourning practices through found footage and the artist’s own images.

 Kurdish English 7 min 5 secs

Workers’ Wings

Krahët e Punëtorëve

Ilir Hasanaj

Kosovo, 2024

After suffering industrial accidents, three manual labourers from Kosova silently convey their experience through their gazes.

 Albanian English 18 min 30 secs

Your voice came out through my throat

Chikako Yamashiro

Japan, 2009

Stories from survivors of the Battle of Okinawa frame an exploration of inherited trauma, and the difficulty of transferring memory across generational lines.   

 Japanese English 7 min 29 secs