Shorts New Talents Competition: Live-action 1

Festival
PÖFF Shorts 2024
Programme
Shorts New Talents Competition: Live-action

This year's New Talents Live Action collection offers a remarkable showcase of young artists exploring connection, separation, loss, and redemption with surprising sincerity. These new voices seek that "aha" moment, piecing together fragments of broken lives into a coherent whole. Whether through the recognition of one’s fragility, the sweeping vortex of first love, or a nostalgia for something lost that seemed to be the stock of air in your lungs, these short films capture raw emotions that make life worth living. With unique cinematic styles, the films tell profoundly human stories of heroes searching for meaning and connection, revealing raw, heartfelt moments of clarity.

Screenings

5th Lux Hall Apollo Kino Coca-Cola Plaza
Screening050501 / Shorts New Talents võistlusprogramm: lühifilm 1
Q&A duration
Screening duration

Competition presented by:

Films

World premiere

Nostalgia In Red

Local title
Nostalgia punases
Original title
Nostalgia In Red
Director
Carmen-Louise Suuroja
Country
Estonia
Year
2024
Festival
PÖFF Shorts 2024
Programme
Shorts New Talents Competition: Live-action

Two former lovers revisit their past in the vibrant lights and music of Tallinn’s bars. As night slowly turns into dawn, they try to figure out whether something new can be born out of nostalgia.

Director
Carmen-Louise Suuroja
Runtime
Language
Estonian
Subtitles
English

World premiere

Tomorrow Never Comes

Local title
Homset ei ole
Original title
Tomorrow Never Comes
Director
Gaia
Country
United Kingdom
Year
2024
Festival
PÖFF Shorts 2024
Programme
Shorts New Talents Competition: Live-action

In war-torn Ukraine, every day may be your last. The constant threat of annihilation has shaped Maria and Sasha’s intense yet tender relationship. But Sasha must return to the front line with his battalion in the morning. Maria, as his mistress, contemplates a heart-wrenching decision: go with him to the war, risking everything to have a few more precious moments with him; or stay in Kyiv knowing that, dead or alive, he will always belong to his family.

Director
Gaia
Runtime
Language
Ukrainian
Subtitles
English

Baltic premiere

April Twenty-Seven

Local title
27. aprill
Original title
Április huszonhét
Director
Rebeka Hathazi
Country
Romania
Year
2024
Festival
PÖFF Shorts 2024
Programme
Shorts New Talents Competition: Live-action

A girl wanders around town on her birthday. Each of her attempts for delight is baffled by the grief on her shoulders. The relief she desires is finally brought by a strange encounter and an abrupt decision.

Director
Rebeka Hathazi
Runtime
Language
Romanian
Subtitles
English

Baltic premiere

Where Time Stood Still

Local title
Kus aeg peatus
Original title
სადაც დრო იდგა
Director
Nino Benashvili
Country
Georgia
Year
2024
Festival
PÖFF Shorts 2024
Programme
Shorts New Talents Competition: Live-action

A widowed mother and daughter’s ascetic life in an isolated village in the Caucasus mountains is interrupted by the arrival of a foreign traveler in need of shelter.

His presence awakens an erotic longing in both women, who are left to simmer in their guilty consciences after the traveler departs.

Director
Nino Benashvili
Runtime
Subtitles
English

Baltic premiere

Between The Lines

Local title
Ridade vahel
Original title
Between The Lines
Director
Niklas Pollmann
Country
Germany
Year
2024
Festival
PÖFF Shorts 2024
Programme
Shorts New Talents Competition: Live-action

Your place or mine? A fleeting acquaintance can be exciting, adventurous, funny, but also opaque or even threatening. Shot in a single shot, the film explores the nuances of such a situation. Between the tracks of an underground station, the outlines of two people and their stories slowly emerge.

Director
Niklas Pollmann
Runtime
Language
German
Subtitles
English

Baltic premiere

Rocky Meets Lucy

Local title
Rocky kohtub Lucyga
Original title
Rocky Meets Lucy
Director
Georges Rottier
Country
Belgium
Year
2023
Festival
PÖFF Shorts 2024
Programme
Shorts New Talents Competition: Live-action

Desperate to impress the love of his life and leave with her to a tropical getaway, Rocky, a deranged alpha-male, tries to delve into the illicit realm of animal trafficking as he attempts to sell a Tibetan Mastiff in Antwerp’s Chinatown.

Director
Georges Rottier
Runtime
Subtitles
English
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