Ikiru

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Ole

Coping with his father's death, Ole takes himself into a vivid daydreaming moment, where he can finally forgive his father.

Luto

Damian, grieving his girlfriend's death, travels through Mexico seeking solace. Along the way, he connects with strangers and witnesses their coping rituals, finding a path through his own memories and regrets.

Mom's Secret

After the sudden death of her mother, 13-year-old Yara struggles to find her place in a world that no longer feels familiar. Hoping for comfort, she returns with her father to the campsite where their family once spent every summer. But things have changed — their beloved caravan has been sold, and her father seems unwilling to face the grief they share. One night, Yara hears mysterious music coming from the direction of her old caravan. Together with her best friend Deon, she sets out to uncover its source. What begins as a haunting mystery slowly transforms into a tender journey of memory, love, and acceptance.

Chasing Ghosts

Lucas Simons, an 11-year-old filmmaker, is obsessed with death after the loss of his brother. When Lucas accidentally captures a mysterious presence in one of his films, he inadvertently becomes a YouTube phenomenon, and must learn to live life in the spotlight while also learning how to once again start living life to its fullest.

Le Bain

In this intimate, experimental drama, a young woman is prey to the denial of the grief of her mother, a painting restorer. Jade runs herself a bath. Here begins a journey between paint and water during which Jade vacillates between dream and daily reality. Water will immerse us in its internal conflicts between conscious, subconscious and unconscious.

Death of Logic

On a voyage into the dark, we follow a man portraying an intens dialogue with the subconscious. A vignette into the process of looking inward, evaporates the ego and listens to what wants to be heard, on the road to letting go. A requiem for the death of the self.

Le altre vite

Thanks to a new technology, a state center makes it possible to interact with a deceased person. Diego oversees the encounters betwen the dead and the living.

Putty Hill

Friends and family of Cory, a young man who has died of an overdose, gather at a Baltimore-area karaoke bar for his wake and compare stories about him. Gradually, as it becomes clear that there are many holes in their recollections about Cory, they fill in the blanks by talking about things that reveal aspects of their own lives. Among those mourning him and searching for meaning are his cousin Jenny, his sister Zoe and his brother James.

Avance et tu verras

The sun rises over the dark, misty forest. It's springtime. Nature is lush. A man in his fifties walks warily along a hiking trail cut through tall ferns. He's not walking alone; something invisible is connected to him.

The Match

A son and his father face each other in silence, letting chess say what was never said.

Chapel of Rest

Chapel of Rest is a dramatic comedy in which two young brothers are introduced to the ceremony of death while attending their grandfather's wake. When curiosity gets the better of them, the boys sneak into the chapel to see the body--but their fascination quickly gives way to mischief.

Please, Don’t Cry

A professional mourner goes to what seems just another job when she begins to suspect that the deceased might be tied to her forgotten past.

Sword in 21st Century

Casting a sword with one's bare hands may sound like a crazy idea to many in the high-tech, digital 21st Century, but not to Fung, a stock broker, who welcomes the assigned task that bears special meaning. When Fung is bequeathed a tattered notebook by his father Lang on his deathbed, his life is turned upside down. Tasked with a heavy undertaking, Fung has to think and look out of the box before rolling up his sleeves to forge the sword. Through the tedious process of annealing and tempering, grinding and cutting, he begins to contemplate the meaning of casting a sword, and of the elusive father and son relationship.

Cieli Rossi

Cheesy Mourning

Created as part of a 48-hour film challenge, this tender and lightly comedic short follows recently widowed Dad Eli as he navigates the chaos of a single morning with his spirited 11-year-old daughter, Naomi. What begins as a struggle over burnt grilled cheese turns into a quiet, heartfelt moment of connection, love, and resilience. Naomi’s wisdom, humor, and old-soul insight help her father navigate grief, reminding us that even in loss, love—and laughter—can still find a way. A story about family, imperfection, and the small moments that make life meaningful. "This film made as part of 48 Hours California and the Sacramento International Film Festival ©2025." #ShortFilm #48HourFilmChallenge #Family #Grief #ComedyDrama #FatherDaughter #Heartfelt #MinimalistFilm #BurntGrilledCheese #LoveAndLoss #EmotionalShort #CheesyMourning

Haya Kang Balbal

Under pressure to sell their land to a contractor, Ramon seeks his wife’s counsel, and a devastating truth begins to unravel.

The Gathered

After her beloved aunt dies, young girl Lily (Polly Dartford) finds herself clashing with the insensitive guests gathered at the wake.

My Best Friend

Two long lost friends meet at the wake of their estranged friend's funeral

Everything in Its Right Place

Salih (35), taking his son Mert (5), returns to father’s home, upon his funeral - in where he gets stuck within memories, family criticism and responsibility to his son. He justifies himself by blaming his father with whom he had a fall out but also faces the truths of becoming him and that his father loved him indeed.

Black or White

A grieving widower is drawn into a custody battle over his granddaughter, whom he helped raise her entire life.

Goodbye June

Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.

Strange Weather

Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.

Hereafter

Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.

Rabbit Hole

Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.

Hellion

When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.

The Safety of Objects

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

The Truth About Emanuel

A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.

Personal Effects

Walter is a rising star in the NCAA wrestling world until his life is ripped apart by the brutal murder of his sister. Returning home to console his mother Gloria he seeks vengeance on the man who is accused of the crime. A chance meeting with a beautiful mature woman gives him solace to the situation. Will this unlikely pairing bloom into a romance and heal a wound the world cannot see or will the loss of his sister push him over the edge?

Cake

After having visions of a member of her support group who killed herself, a woman who also suffers with chronic pain seeks out the widower of the suicide.

1

Early morning silence is broken by screeching tires as a helicopter bears down on a speeding vehicle. Taking a quick corner, the team tumbles out into the woods as their car pulls away. Now they must make their way through the thick of nature and thick gunfire to accomplish their mission. Not a single word of dialogue is spoken throughout the entire film. Instead, the music, sounds, images and deeply truthful acting turn a simple plot into an intense experience. Passion and intrigue keep building to the very end.

Holy Lands

When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.

A Dry White Season

During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.

Flashbacks of a Fool

An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970s Britain.

The Young One

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

Starving in Suburbia

When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?

Beast

MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal champion Xavier Grau.

Horns

In the aftermath of his girlfriend's mysterious death, a young man awakens to strange horns sprouting from his temples.

The Trials of Cate McCall

In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.

Manchester by the Sea

After his older brother passes away, Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised.