Global Shorts

In a final desperate visit to the village fortune teller, Sabreen, a rural Iraqi woman burdened with blame and trapped by expectations, seeks a talisman to help her conceive, in order to preserve her traditional marriage. In a place that offers little hope, and with mounting pressures, she longs for a moment of freedom through which she can reclaim what remains of herself.

A cold and dark evening in Vilnius. Emilė and Monika are getting ready for a date. Emilė has been invited by a charming guy named Juozas to play poker with his friends. The girls agree to the adventure and head out to the party. Soon, they find themselves in a very private male-dominated zone.

In rural Spain, ten-year-old Pablo loves spending time at his granny’s countryside home, playing with his younger sister Alba and his best friend Martín. But everything changes when Martín pressures him to betray his family, leaving Pablo to question where he truly belongs.

A young mother and her toddler face a devastating reality when a new law bans her scheduled abortion. Desperate to avoid the lengthy process of obtaining a special license, she opts for an illegal procedure. As she delves into the underground world, the story takes a tragic turn, underscoring the harsh consequences of restrictive legislation on women’s reproductive rights.

A young boy’s imagination begins to blur the lines of reality, leaving the adults around him uncertain about what’s real. As his uncanny abilities begin to grow, they’re forced to ask: is it a gift—or a curse?

Ruby is a young man from a working-class neighborhood in Madrid, tired of the violence and distrust that define his group of friends’ daily lives. Together with Nélson, Daniela, and Alexis, he spends the eve of Saint John’s Night, where every plan and every action turn into a competition among the boys to validate their status within the group. As night falls, Ruby finds himself at odds with his friends over an alleged theft, with the flames of the Saint John’s bonfires as silent witnesses.

A talented pianist and his 8-year-old son struggle to find a place to sell vegetables at the biggest market in Moldova’s 2000′. When the father seems to give up under the burden of his precarious existence, a gesture from his son brings new hope.