International Features & Mid-length Competition

Discover new international films in competition. From dark humour and sisterhood to grief, sporting dreams and dramatic real-life events.

International Features & Mid-length Competition

A Messy Tribute to Motherly Love

A Messy Tribute to Motherly Love is a macabre fairy tale about parental love, good intentions, and the dangerous pursuit of engineered happiness. Set in an absurdist universe where reproduction requires bodily sacrifice, director Dan Geesin (Sputum) blends black humor with subtle horror to explore how care, when pushed too far, can become destructive.

International Features & Mid-length Competition

An Accident + Green Lake

Two stories about strange encounters, unexpected events and people finding themselves in situations they could never have anticipated. From the Austrian countryside to a phosphate factory in China – two films filled with darkness, humor and surprises.

International Features & Mid-length Competition

Heysel 85

When violence erupts before the 1985 European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus at Brussels’ Heysel Stadium, killing 39 people, the mayor’s daughter and a journalist with Italian roots are drawn into the heart of the tragedy, caught between professional duty, family loyalty, and moral responsibility.

International Features & Mid-length Competition

Lady

In the sprawling African metropolis of Lagos, a fiercely independent young cab driver meets a band of radiantly reckless sex workers whose sisterhood pulls her into danger and joy, setting her on a journey toward her own transformation.

International Features & Mid-length Competition

One Woman One Bra

The villagers of Sayit are about to receive title deeds, marking the first time in centuries they will claim legal ownership of their land. While this is great news for many, 38-year-old Star faces the risk of losing her home. The title deeds are based on kinship ties, and since her parentage is unknown and she is unmarried, her situation is precarious. Things take a turn when Star discovers a photograph of her younger self in "The World Book of Nomads." In the picture, a mysterious hand with familiar tribal markings catches her attention, as she recognizes those marks as belonging to a local food seller. Believing the woman to be her estranged mother, Star confronts her, but the woman denies any connection. Desperate to maintain her claim to the land, Star considers several options: finding the foreign photographer who took the picture, proposing marriage to a friend, and signing a morally questionable deal with an NGO. However, this deal puts her at loggerheads with her community.

International Features & Mid-length Competition

Sol Menor + Wind Beneath the Wings

Two films about grief, loneliness and trying to find a way back to life. With music, family and unexpected alliances at the heart of the stories, we meet people who, despite what they have lost, are searching for something to hold on to.

International Features & Mid-length Competition

The Gymnast

In a former mill-town devastated by loss of industry, a 16 year-old elite gymnast and her single father, a die hard “gym dad”, fight to reinvent themselves after a potentially career-ending injury.

International Features & Mid-length Competition

Traces of What Remains

An amnesia disrupts Nori and Selma’s world. After a miscarriage, Nori was meant to pick up Selma — but wakes up in a park, injured and without memory. As fragments return, hidden truths emerge, threatening to destroy what’s left of their love. Can they find their way back to each other?