Short Encounters

Short Encounters The Short Encounters International Film Festival (SEIFF) is an awarding body dedicated to groundbreaking, independent cinema, from all around the world.

SEIFF opens its doors to the future of cinema by welcoming emerging filmmakers, actors, cinematographers, editors and producers to present their films and to be recognised for their talent, their unique vision and have their films seen globally.

INTRODUCING THE PRESIDENT OF OUR JURY TEAM: ALEX LORA CERCÓSThe 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festi...
24/02/2026

INTRODUCING THE PRESIDENT OF OUR JURY TEAM: ALEX LORA CERCÓS
The 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festival brings together a team of BOLD visionaries. Each member of our jury brings a unique lens to storytelling, ensuring our selection celebrates bold voices, innovative craft, and unforgettable emotion.
Alex Lora is an award-winning Disabled Spanish filmmaker based in New York; a Fulbright scholar and 2025 Spanish Academy Award winner, with over 100 international awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and recognition as a 2025 Oscar® finalist. His films have screened at major festivals such as Sundance, Berlinale, Shanghai, IDFA, Rotterdam, San Sebastián or Málaga. He has won 9 New York Emmy® Awards for his work at CUNY TV and was a nominee for the Student Academy Awards in 2012. He is known for blending cinematic artistry with deep social impact, exploring themes of class, race, identity, immigration, and disability. Alex is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

INTRODUCING THE JURY TEAM: GUEST JUROR - JUMAI YUSUFThe 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festival brin...
24/02/2026

INTRODUCING THE JURY TEAM: GUEST JUROR - JUMAI YUSUF
The 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festival brings together a team of BOLD visionaries. Each member of our jury brings a unique lens to storytelling, ensuring our selection celebrates bold voices, innovative craft, and unforgettable emotion.
Jumai Yusuf is a Writer, Director, Producer, and co-founder of Lunar Crown Productions, who is passionate about bringing underrepresented stories to the screen. A Muslim, Nigerian immigrant, she blends her unique perspective with bold, imaginative storytelling across both live-action and animation. She holds an MFA in Film & TV Production from USC and a B.A. in Neurobiology from Harvard. Her short films have screened at dozens of festivals worldwide, including Tribeca, HollyShorts, and Cannes.
Her Oscar-qualified short film "Nate & John" premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, was nominated for the 56th NAACP Image Awards, and won the Gold House Cultural Impact Award at the American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase during the 77th Cannes Film Festival. She was a fellow in the inaugural Sundance Institute x Walt Disney Muslim Artist Fellowship program, which supported her animated pilot script LAYLA AND THE STARSHIP AFROTOPIA. This pilot was also selected for the Culture House Immersive Incubator program, and the Television Screenwriting Lab for Black Muslim Writers hosted by MPAC Hollywood and the BlackHouse. Her horror feature script COCOA DOLL has been recognized on the Muslim List (presented by the Black List, MPAC Hollywood, and Pillars Fund) and the WScripted Cannes Screenplay List (presented by MUBI). She directed The Eid Gift for Rifelion's Ramadan America anthology, which premiered at The Muslim House @ SXSW 2024 and won awards at SeriesFest and Diversity in Cannes. She also produced Simulacra, a Student Academy Award-winning 3D animated/live-action hybrid film. Her full portfolio is available at www.jumaiyusuf.com

INTRODUCING THE JURY TEAM: GUEST JUROR - MYRIAM VERREAULTThe 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festival...
24/02/2026

INTRODUCING THE JURY TEAM: GUEST JUROR - MYRIAM VERREAULT
The 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festival brings together a team of BOLD visionaries. Each member of our jury brings a unique lens to storytelling, ensuring our selection celebrates bold voices, innovative craft, and unforgettable emotion.
Myriam Verreault is a Canadian filmmaker from Québec, working across film and television. She first gained international attention with WEST OF PLUTO, a critically acclaimed debut that marked her as a distinctive new voice in Québec cinema. She later directed KUESSIPAN, which enjoyed major critical and audience success in Canada and abroad, and was widely praised for its sensitive, humanistic storytelling.
Alongside her feature film work, Verreault has directed more than 70 episodes of popular television series in Québec, demonstrating a strong ability to combine artistic vision with large-scale, collaborative production. Her work is recognized for its emotional precision, attention to character, and grounded, contemporary realism.

INTRODUCING THE JURY TEAM: GUEST JUROR - BRIGITTE POUPARTThe 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festival...
24/02/2026

INTRODUCING THE JURY TEAM: GUEST JUROR - BRIGITTE POUPART
The 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festival brings together a team of BOLD visionaries. Each member of our jury brings a unique lens to storytelling, ensuring our selection celebrates bold voices, innovative craft, and unforgettable emotion. Brigitte Poupart is a multidisciplinary artist, theater director, actress, artistic director, playwright, and filmmaker whose boundless creativity has left an indelible mark on Quebec’s cultural landscape. Trained at the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal, she has built a career that defies categorization, seamlessly navigating theater, cinema, performance, and digital arts with equal mastery. A visionary in the performing arts, Poupart has directed and co-founded Transthéâtre, producing bold, original works such as Le Défilé des canards dorés (1998), Babel (2002), Cérémonials (2004), and the immersive multidisciplinary spectacle Jusqu’à ce qu’on meure (2022–2024), which toured internationally, including performances at Nuits de Fourvière (Lyon) and La Villette (Paris). Her theatrical repertoire spans intimate dramas like Anatomie d’un Su***de (2024) to large-scale outdoor productions, including L’Édifice (2003) and L’Autoroute (2006). A fearless collaborator, she has worked with provocative artists like Dave St-Pierre (Un peu de tendresse bo**el de m***e) and the satirical collective Les Zapartistes, while also directing major musical performances for festivals such as the Festival d’été de Québec and the Montreal Jazz Festival, collaborating with artists like Patrick Watson, Louis-Jean Cormier, and Karkwa.
In cinema, Poupart has made her mark both in front of and behind the camera. She earned a Gala Québec Cinéma acting award for her role in Les Affamés (2018) and starred in Philippe Falardeau’s Oscar-nominated Monsieur Lazhar (2011) and Renée Beaulieu’s Les Salopes, ou le sucre naturel de la peau (2018), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). (more information about Brigitte will soon be available on our website, currently being renewed).)

INTRODUCING THE JURY TEAM: GUEST JUROR - ALEXNADER AARØEN PEDERSENThe 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film...
24/02/2026

INTRODUCING THE JURY TEAM: GUEST JUROR - ALEXNADER AARØEN PEDERSEN
The 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festival brings together a team of BOLD visionaries. Each member of our jury brings a unique lens to storytelling, ensuring our selection celebrates bold voices, innovative craft, and unforgettable emotion. Alexander Aarøen Pedersen is a composer, arranger, pianist, and musical director with a distinguished educational and professional background in film scoring, orchestral music, and theatrical productions. His training includes a First Class Honours Master’s in Scoring for Film and Visual Media from Pulse College, a Bachelor’s in Jazz Piano from Tromsø Conservatory, and elite programs such as the ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop (selected from 350 international applicants) and the Los Angeles Conducting Intensive at Warner Brothers Studios, where he studied under industry legends like Conrad Pope (Harry Potter, Star Wars). Pedersen’s career highlights include composing the opening work for Bodø 2024 – European Capital of Culture, performed by the Arctic Philharmonic; scoring the Sundance 2025-premiered short film Em and Selma Goes Griffin Hunting, which earned Best Original Score awards at Filmquest and Short Encounters International Film Festival; and creating music for acclaimed productions like The Invisible People at Norway’s National Theatre. A recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Steve Kaplan TV & Film Studies Award and the Sparebanken Nord-Norge Talent Scholarship, he has also arranged for the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (KORK), directed children’s performances, and contributed to festivals, blending classical, jazz, and contemporary influences into his evocative, genre-spanning work.

INTRODUCING THE JURY TEAM: GUEST JUROR - ANTOINE FLANDREThe 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festival ...
24/02/2026

INTRODUCING THE JURY TEAM: GUEST JUROR - ANTOINE FLANDRE
The 5th edition of Short Encounters International Film Festival brings together a team of BOLD visionaries. Each member of our jury brings a unique lens to storytelling, ensuring our selection celebrates bold voices, innovative craft, and unforgettable emotion. Antoine Flandre is a Paris-based film editor and lifelong cinephile whose passion for cinema, spanning every genre and era, has shaped a dynamic career in both short and feature films. After earning a reputation as a devoted (if occasionally "nauseating," per one university professor) film enthusiast, he began his professional journey in Paris, working on trailers, video games (Ubisoft), and television (MTV, Game One, TF1, M6, Canal+). However, his true calling emerged when two directors from his TV days entrusted him with editing their debut shorts, igniting a prolific career in independent filmmaking. Flandre’s work on acclaimed shorts—including Homesick (2018, dir. Koya Kamura), Cut Me If You Can (2023, dir. Nicolas Polixene & Sylvain Loubet), and the award-winning Alarms (2023, dir. Nicolas Panay), culminated in his first Best Editor win at the 2025 Short Encounters International Film Festival. His transition to features came with Winter in Sokcho (2025, dir. Koya Kamura), a critically praised debut that earned strong box-office success and multiple awards, including César 2025 eligibility. A collaborator equally at home with emerging and established directors, Flandre thrives on the creative exchange of editing, embracing every genre as both a craftsman and a devoted cinephile. Honored to serve on the 2025 Short Encounters jury, he continues to seek bold new projects, whether shorts or features, with partners old and new.

INTRODUCING THE FESTIVAL DIRECTOR: Kiriakos Kotsinis is an interdisciplinary creator, and philosophical thinker whose wo...
24/02/2026

INTRODUCING THE FESTIVAL DIRECTOR: Kiriakos Kotsinis is an interdisciplinary creator, and philosophical thinker whose work bridges the worlds of cinema and existential inquiry. As the Artistic Director of the Short Encounters International Film Festival, he shapes the festival’s artistic identity through strategic curation, fostering international collaborations with filmmakers, producers, and industry leaders while spearheading high-impact educational initiatives, from workshops to pitching labs, that empower emerging talent. A polymath at heart, he merges his technical precision as a civil engineer with his deep engagement in European philosophy (MA in Aesthetics, Manchester Metropolitan University) and theater/film studies (Greek Ministry of Culture). This synthesis of disciplines informs his creative output, which includes award-winning short films, as well as his book "More Time", a meditation on temporality, memory, and the human condition. His work is steeped in the existential traditions of Camus, Proust, and Nietzsche, grappling with life’s absurdities while celebrating the ephemeral beauty of fleeting moments. Whether curating groundbreaking films, mentoring artists, or penning essays on existence, Kiriakos Kotsinis invites audiences to confront the profound questions that define our shared
humanity.

Short Encounters IFF is thrilled to unveil the official selection of animated short films competing in this year’s in-co...
18/02/2026

Short Encounters IFF is thrilled to unveil the official selection of animated short films competing in this year’s in-competition program. A dazzling showcase of creativity, innovation, and storytelling at its finest.
From whimsical fantasies to deeply moving narratives, these films push the boundaries of animation, proving that even the shortest stories can leave the biggest impact. This year’s lineup is a global celebration of animation, featuring bold new voices alongside established talents. Whether you’re a lifelong animation enthusiast or a first-time viewer, these films will challenge, delight, and inspire, reminding us why short films are the heartbeat of cinematic art.

Next in our lineup: Experimental Short Films. We’re excited to announce the experimental works officially selected for t...
18/02/2026

Next in our lineup: Experimental Short Films. We’re excited to announce the experimental works officially selected for the In-Competition Program of the 5th Short Encounters International Film Festival. This category celebrates filmmakers who take risks, pushing the language of cinema forward through bold form, hybrid approaches, and inventive storytelling beyond convention.
Congratulations to all selected artists and teams. We can’t wait to experience these films with our audience during the festival.

New Critical Analysis on “Missing Meaning”, an entirely mobile-created film, composed through a constellation of AI-driv...
18/11/2025

New Critical Analysis on “Missing Meaning”, an entirely mobile-created film, composed through a constellation of AI-driven applications. Directed by Vasco Diogo (analysis by Kiriakos Kotsinis)

New film review, on Andrés Hernández Covarrubias' short film “Old Well”. Thank you for reading. Viejo Pozo - Short Film ...
06/10/2025

New film review, on Andrés Hernández Covarrubias' short film “Old Well”. Thank you for reading. Viejo Pozo - Short Film

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