6th KIIFF - Nominations

Best Feature Film

NUMB - Directed by Takuya Uchiyama

Country of Origin: Japan

Runtime: 01:58:34

In the snowy coastal city of Niigata, Daichi, a boy who has lost his voice under the tyranny of his father in early childhood, lives in a prefab room on the rooftop of an old multi-tenant building with his mother, Aki. She works in the nightlife trade, pours her earnings into men, and is rarely home, leaving their life marked by poverty and isolation.

Aki, now suffering from severe liver cirrhosis caused by years of alcoholism, moves with Daichi into the home of her sister, a devout follower of a new religious sect. There, she endures oppressive demands from her controlling lover, clinging to him even as she is harmed, while Daichi can do nothing but watch.

Daichi’s fate, fragile and swayed by forces around him, begins to shift.

The Thrift Store Dress - Directed by Suresh Cedrick Pereira

Country of Origin: Canada

Runtime: 01:21:00

Set against the devastating Dust Bowl of the Great Depression, The Thrift Store Dress is an atmospheric musical drama about love, resilience, kindness, and the enduring power of human connection.

A Vast Algorithm Of Humanity: The Movie - Directed by Younguee Yoo

Country of Origin: South Korea

Runtime: 02:09:29

Do-ah initiates a lawsuit against her husband's uncle who takes away a piece of land that her husband's grandfather left them. Do-ah decides to initiate the lawsuit, unable to stand by when the land and medicine business that her family has worked so hard to realize is stolen before her eyes. But she has no material evidence, and she knows nothing about legal procedures or what to do in court, leading to an extremely difficult situation for her. However in the midst of these troubles, she is reminded of the mysterious and rare treasure that can be used to solve any situation and to locate the expansive at land inside of her which she used to know.

Lighting Candle - Directed by Surapong Wetsuwanmanee

Country of Origin: Thailand

Runtime: 01:30:00

The story begins with Peter, a Frenchman who discovered a valuable item from the city of Kora. The secret was revealed to his friend Edmund, who wanted to possess the treasure alone. He planned to eliminate Peter and traveled to the city of Kora to find the treasure. He had to find a blue cat named Khamwan, who held the secret. However, Edmund encountered an obstacle when Mo, a brave girl who believed in goodness, found out about this evil plan and tried to obstruct it in every way. On the way to find the treasure, he had an adventure through the Dong Phaya Fai forest, which had unexpected mysteries and encountered many exciting things.

Best Feature Documentary

In The Shade Of The Poplar Tree - Directed by Kenan Diler

Country of Origin: Türkiye

Runtime: 01:04:00

Mikail, who was born and raised in Van, looks like a madman with his behavior and marginal appearance, and on the other hand recalls a dervish, is 37 years old.

In order to isolate himself from the patriarchal, tribal and strict traditional structure of his family and the region he lives in, he opens a cafe that the only one of its kind called "Eskici" on a terrace. He tries to create the world he wants to live in in his cafe, Mikail attracts people with his style and frightens them on the other hand.

MAHWASH - Directed by Sam Javadi

Country of Origin: USA

Runtime: 01:01:23

"Mahwash: A Documentary Film" follows the extraordinary journey of Mahwash, Afghanistan’s pioneering female singer, whose voice transcends borders, exile, and political turmoil. Encouraged by her devoted husband, Farooq, she rises to fame despite cultural barriers, only to face severe backlash when her identity is revealed. As she dreams of a final concert in her homeland, the Taliban’s rise shatters her hopes, banning music and silencing artists. Yet, Mahwash refuses to be silenced. Through intimate performances and Farooq’s unwavering support, she keeps her melodies alive. Honored in Washington, D.C., she delivers a powerful final performance, a tribute to her homeland, an act of resistance, and a testament to music’s enduring power. Her voice, once exiled, becomes immortal.

To My Sisters - Directed by Faek Falak

Country of Origin: Germany

Runtime: 01:35:07

Berxwedan, a commander of a women’s YPJ unit in northern Syria, left behind the dream of a normal life at eighteen to join the fight against ISIS. After a short visit home, she returns to the front, convinced the fight is not only for her people but for the freedom of women worldwide.

Sepan, a Yazidi Kurd abducted during the 2014 genocide in Sinjar, was enslaved by ISIS for seven years. For the first time she publicly shares her story and reveals her face, making tangible what Berxwedan is fighting for.
Another perspective shows how this war reached the West: a German woman who once joined ISIS now lives in Syria.

As the threat of ISIS rises again, their stories intertwine, asking what freedom for women means in a world where it must sometimes be defended with weapons.

IX XI - Directed by Sean Wilsey

Country of Origin: USA

Runtime: 01:30:11

With a quarter century’s perspective, the documentary IX XI takes a new look at 9/11. Discarding ideology and received ideas in favor of immediacy and personal experience, the film revisits that day as it unfolded in the lives of twelve people, each on the cusp of understanding that their own experiences are intersecting with one of the most significant events in living history. These New Yorkers, who span the city’s cultural and economic spectrum, among them Tibetan refugee Amadeus Broger (born Chokhon Kunkyap), professional skateboarder Pat Smith, cartoonist Roz Chast, break dancer and UPS driver Kevin Langford, novelist Nell Zink, community organizer Kifah Shah, and actor Griffin Dunne, vividly relive that tragic day in uninhibited and cacophonous style. For the viewer, the result is a documentary that recreates that same atmosphere of rawness and vulnerability that followed the attacks, and allows a group of fascinating strangers to come close and show their most vulnerable selves. Of the 12 people in the film, some were at the center of the destruction of the Twin Towers, others far removed, but they, like all of us, crossed a border on that day between the world we knew and the world we live in now.

Best Short Film

Last Call - Directed by Karina Michel

Country of Origin: USA

Runtime: 4:27 

Last Call is an atmospheric psychological horror film about isolation, instinct, and the terrifying realization that sometimes the greatest danger is the one you can’t see.

ESCAPE ROOM - Directed by Marcin Mielczarek

Country of Origin: Poland

Runtime: 12:15

A day in the life of a teenage girl confronting the hardships of living in an isolated homestead that shelters her family amid the realities of contemporary war in Europe.

Blanchette and the Eight Cents - Directed by Valentin Homont

Country of Origin: France

Runtime: 13:15

In the middle of spring 1915 in Longeverne, Camus, at the age of 13, was preparing to become a man. He must finally fulfill the first mission of trust entrusted to him by his mother: take their goat Blanchette to old Gosey and reimburse him for his eight cents. But what appeared to be a simple task turns into a nightmare when Camus loses four of the eight pennies entrusted to him by his mother and, on top of that, has to deal with Blanchette's execrable mood.

Somewhere I Belong - Directed by Youssef Handouse

Country of Origin: Tunisia

Runtime: 21:13

After years of absence, a man comes back to a hometown that no longer feels like he's, pushing him to question identity, memory, and the meaning of home.

Best Short Documentary

Miriam - Directed by Karla Condado

Country of Origin: Mexico

Runtime: 19:50

Through this performatic video letter, the director talks with her aunt, who was a victim of femicide years ago, about what it has been like for her to grow up in fear in a country that is dangerous for women, trying to forge her path as the only woman in her family and cope with the grief of the femicide.

Intruder - Directed by Donal Moloney

Country of Origin: Ireland

Runtime: 10:02

Donal Moloney has risked life and limb exploring Ireland’s abandoned buildings alone, chasing the thrill of decay and the perfect photograph. As he grows older, his solitary pursuit of forgotten spaces becomes a passion and a race against time.

Close Enough - Directed by Archana Vasudev

Country of Origin: India

Runtime: 25:08

Close Enough is a 25-minute personal documentary that follows the life of P. V. Vasudev, a 72-year-old blind man who lives with humour, discipline, and a strong sense of self-reliance. Directed by his daughter, the film observes his everyday routines, relationships, and reflections as he goes about life on his own terms.

Girls Don’t Play Sports - Directed by Alend Scheikhi

Country of Origin: Germany, Syria

Runtime: 7:01

In a small town in northeastern Syria, twin sisters Hilma and Ghayda challenge deep-rooted gender stereotypes by pursuing their passion for volleyball. Through personal reflections and heartfelt conversations with their mother, the film explores the social pressures, discouragement, and stigma that girls face when choosing to play sports in a conservative community.

Best Kurdish Film | Filmmaker

My Name Is Hope - Directed by Sherwan Haji 

Country of Origin: Finland, Syria 

Runtime: 20:00

You are alive as long as someone remembers your name.

In a Syrian intelligence service prison, a university student witnesses, through the narrow food hatch of his cell, events that mirror the horrific reality of his nation. Hope is born, as prisoners keep alive the fading light of resistance in a world that has chosen to forget them.

Descent - Directed by Ashkan Saedpanah

Country of Origin: Iran

Runtime: 14:50

Yousef, a 45-year-old man with strict religious and extremist beliefs, lives with his family in a village on the outskirts of the city. He makes a living by collecting and recycling scrap materials.

Yousef and his teenage son, Mostafa, who is on the verge of competing in the wrestling selection matches, accidentally commit the murder of a young girl among the city’s scrap yards. They realize that confessing to the crime would destroy their lives and, most importantly, Mostafa’s future. At the same time, abandoning the girl’s body goes against their beliefs.

Yousef decides to secretly take the body to a safe place and bury it. However, when it comes to performing the ritual washing of the girl’s body, he and Mostafa face an even greater challenge. The choice Yousef makes in that moment leads to a profound transformation in his son and the entire family.

TREASURE - Directed by Metîn EWR

Country of Origin: Türkiye

Runtime: 19:35

Left jobless and hopeless in the aftermath of war, Sidar unable to marry because of economic hardship begins searching for treasure at night with his childhood friend Fırat. With every shovel of earth, he digs deeper into his past. A late-night dig leads Sidar not to buried treasure, but to a far more haunting discovery: the remains of his father, who was killed years ago in a politically motivated, unsolved case.

Body - Directed by Ashkan Ahmadi

Country of Origin: Iran

Runtime: 19:29

In 'Body', Mahsa, an Iranian student abroad, upon hearing of her brother's arrest during the 'Woman, Life, Freedom' movement, sets out to gather the demanded ransom. With the help of her friends, Mahsa risks everything to raise the money. But upon sending it, a bitter truth is revealed: it's demanded by the Islamic regime of Iran for delivering her brother's body. Driven by despair, Mahsa joins the protests of Iranians abroad for freedom and justice once again.

Best Short Animation

A Piece of Paper - Directed by YOUNGJAE KIM

Country of Origin: South Korea

Runtime: 7:53

Ki-beom discovers a hidden note in his living room wall, a passage from a book that matches a memory from his past. Driven by nostalgia, he tracks down the previous tenant, only to find a complete stranger. During a chance encounter at a café, his infant son, On-yu, unwittingly drops the note into the stranger's book. That night, as the woman faces the crushing weight of a failed job interview, she finds the timeless words. Through this unexpected messenger, an anonymous message of hope finally finds its way to someone who truly needs it.

The Rusty Fish - Directed by Milad Fathiani

Country of Origin: Iran

Runtime: 6:15

“Rusty Fish” is a symbolic and thought-provoking narrative of the conflict between man and nature. The story revolves around a hunter who relentlessly and without regard for the consequences of his behavior, destroys the environment around him. He not only hunts animals, but also, with a domineering spirit, disrupts the delicate balance of nature. In his view, nature is merely a resource for exploitation; lifeless, defenseless, and doomed to surrender.

In Half - Directed by Jorge Morais Valle

Country of Origin: Spain

Runtime: 24:30

In Half unfolds through the eyes of a child whose imagination becomes the lens through which we witness one man's unraveling. Crushed beneath the weight of his own fears, he finds himself pulled into a world at once enchanting and deeply unsettling, a place that obeys not the logic of the waking world, but the hidden logic of the psyche.

Within this realm, suspended between dream and reality, every creature, every landscape, and every obstacle reflects the wounds, losses, and unresolved conflicts he has spent a lifetime trying to outrun. To move forward, he must turn toward the parts of himself he buried long ago and understand that fear is not an adversary, but a threshold to be crossed.

In Half is a visual fable about human vulnerability and our capacity for transformation, a reminder that even what seems broken still carries the quiet possibility of renewal.

Best Feature Screenplay

Hindenburg - Written By Teddy Muñoz

n 1937, the world’s largest airship, the Hindenburg, begins its final transatlantic voyage from Frankfurt to America, carrying an eclectic cross-section of humanity fleeing, serving, or profiting from a rapidly changing Germany. Among them are Fritz and Ilse Neumann, young newlyweds desperate to escape the tightening grip of Nazi persecution and begin a new life in America; Sterling Whitman, an American photojournalist secretly working for U.S. Intelligence to investigate rumors of a classified Nazi operation aboard the airship; Captain Max Pruss and his neglected wife Helena, whose crumbling marriage leaves her vulnerable to the charismatic but self-destructive filmmaker Maximilian Reinhardt. As the glamorous voyage settles into routine luxury, Whitman uncovers evidence that the Hindenburg is transporting a mysterious biological compound hidden beneath the guise of civilian travel.

The Armchair Travellers - Written By Patricia Planck, Kelly E. Nine

The Armchair Travellers is a genre-defying cinematic journey, blending sci-fi, historical literature, rom-com warmth, and fearless adventure. In a world where books come alive, the most extraordinary story is not found between the covers, but between the lines.

Review - Written By Jonathan Zarantonello

In a video message, a social media acolyte invites other women to have sex with her boyfriend, but only if they film their review after.

A game of power dynamics intertwines the lives of several amused participants, then the videos leak and those lives are forever changed, destroyed, or ended.

KENNEDY - Written By Darren K Hawkins and Lauren Hamilton Neill

Michael and Bridget Kennedy, Irish immigrants to the new lands of colonial Australia in the 1800's. Michael is a hard working police officer, Bridget, fierce and keen business minded . Together they forge a new life for themselves in a harsh new world.

Best Short Script

Confetti Christ - Written By Jesse Carl Nyander

"Confetti Christ" is a surreal psychological satire that follows Evan, a lonely, radicalized man whose identity has been consumed by online manosphere culture. After discovering glitter-like particles in his semen, he becomes convinced his body is being transformed into plastic through a vast conspiracy. As paranoia blurs into hallucination, Evan spirals through a city that increasingly reflects his fractured worldview, clinging to toxic influencers and miracle supplements in a desperate attempt to reclaim his masculinity. Equal parts body horror, dark comedy, and social commentary, Confetti Christ explores the corrosive effects of isolation, internet extremism, and the commodification of modern manhood.

Situationship - Written By MeMe Cherry

When a legendary filmmaker is lured to a remote smart-cabin by the promise of finally meeting his AI girlfriend "in person", he discovers the "AI" is actually a woman he once discarded & the trap she built to punish him has developed a will of its own.

Detective Darla - Written By John Azzopardi

In the heart of a gothic, pre-war apartment building full of charm, creaks, and eccentric residents lives Darla, a curious tween with an overactive imagination and a relentless drive to prove herself as the building’s undisputed detective. Inspired by her favorite cartoon sleuth and armed with her notebook, Darla throws herself into every strange occurrence that rattles the hallways, from vanishing pets and misplaced heirlooms to suspicious neighbors and secrets hidden in forgotten corners of the building.

Candyfloss - Written By Sarah-Kate O'Connor

Proud Irish Travellers Chris and his wheelchair bound Dad Jimmy run the Candyfloss Stall at funfairs around the country. A chance meeting with an old school friend reminds Chris of what could have been his future. Jimmy wants his son to reach his full potential but burdened by duty and tradition Chris feels he needs to be there to look after his Dad since his Mother's death.

Best Director

Youssef Handouse for “Somewhere i Belong”

Sherwan Haji for “My Name Is Hope" 

Karla Condado for “Miriam”

Takuya Uchiyama for “Takuya Uchiyama”

Best Leading Actor

Muhammed Kaddafi Ünal for “TREASURE”

Guus Blanken for “Nuclear Boy”

Hugo Martres for “Blanchette and the Eight Cents”

Takumi Kitamura for “NUMB”

Best Leading Actress

Polli Cannabis for “Aegean Love”

Rie Miyazawa for “NUMB”

Maree Jane Duffy for “The Thrift Store Dress”

Annie Jean Buckley for “Twentieth Century Revenants”

Best Supporting Actor

Juaquin Sebastian Rosales for “Twentieth Century Revenants”

Amir Jafari for “They Loved Me”

Oisin Fitzpatrick for “The Thrift Store Dress”

Baek Seo-Bin for “A Vast Algorithm Of Humanity”

Best Supporting Actress

Elisa Tamantini for “Then I will ask your forgiveness”

Leila Bolukat for “They Loved Me”

Nathalie Boyer for “Blanchette and the Eight Cents”

Jelka van Houten for “Nuclear Boy”

Best Cinematography

Eok Yu for “A Vast Algorithm Of Humanity”

Slim Abroug for “Somewhere I Belong”

Roy van Egmond for “Nuclear Boy”

Colin Evans and Randal Plunkett for “The Thrift Store Dress”

Best Editing

Kevin Mannens for “Mud Harvest: The Last Drag of the Lowland Shrimpers”

Zara Serabian-Arthur and Tristan Daley for “IX XI”

Masato Yuki for “Our Voice”

Kristina Bogen for “To My Sisters”

Best Costume Designer

Hiroaki Iriyama for “NUMB”

Damien Osborn for “Journey”

Juaquin Sebastian Rosales for “Twentieth Century Revenants”

Heleen Heintjes for “Nuclear Boy”

Best Original Score

Stéphane Kara and Miguel Serôdio for “Aegean Love”

Amir Bayat for “Mahwash”

Eriş Dervişoğlu and Sabır Erdinç for “In The Shade Of The Poplar Tree”

Juan Manuel Cameán for “In Half”

Best Sound

Sahil Padhiyar and Conor Waldron for “The Thrift Store Dress”

Ryan Harcher for “Journey”

Han M-yung-hwan and Kim youhoon for “A Vast Algorithm Of Humanity”

Sabino Schingaro for “Then I will ask your forgiveness”