The 9th edition LIVE SCREENINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

In the small kingdom, snow is falling from a bright sky and the whole town is getting ready for the big winter wedding between Queen Lovisa and the fool Amir. Then, suddenly, the old tyrant's mother Amalia appears with her soldiers in tow. She is determined that the throne will return to her own family. The young crown prince Ville will now become king, just as he always dreamed of. But is he really up to the task - and what are his grandmother's motives?

Seeking to pull her teenage son back from a digital void, mother takes the radical step of cutting the internet. The resulting 'offline' world only serves to expose the terrifying truth behind their real relationship

a personal narrative told directly from memory. It's an experience from years ago that has stayed with me to this day. I don't often share it, but have always wanted to illustrate it as a film where image and sound can convey what this vivid occurrence felt like

Ten years after his son was killed by a drunk driver, Dr. Marcus Reed, a palliative care physician, finds himself treating the very man responsible for his tragedy. Torn between the Hippocratic Oath and a long-suppressed rage, Marcus must choose between his duty as a doctor and his desire for revenge. In the confined space of a hospital room, a silent and intense confrontation unfolds between victim and perpetrator. Just A Regret is a powerful short film about grief, regret, and the thin line between justice and humanity, brought to life through deeply sensitive anthropomorphic characters.

Professor Star l'Etoile set at her desk, her notes, were packed into spiral leather bound notebooks, stacked one atop of the other. They contained years and years of calculations, which sprung from her notebooks and rose up in a spiral, covering hundreds of desks and antique gold plated wooden boards, that covered the entire room. Prof. Star l'Etoile 23 years old has discovered a planet, which earned her, a statue, three medals, and the position as head of astronomy world wide. She's hobbies include practicing mathematics and not going outside. Now she is on the eve of the discovery of another planet. No one had seen this new planet, although it is so close to the sun it would only be seen at certain places at certain points in time. So, Star l'Etoile, unfortunately left with no choice other than to publish the hypothesis, without certainty of its correctness, and Star does so with a heavy heart. Star l'Etoile ran back into her observatory as quickly as she could. She sprinted up the spiral stairs that spanned through her observatory from top to bottom, until she landed in the office chair. She put her hands firmly on the desk in front of her, and then took a deep breath. She stayed there, in a pause, for a long moment, and then began her calculations. She jotted down forms and formulas, letters and numbers, when she heard a knock on the door. It was him again, wasn't it? Star got so tired of the guest who visited her ever so often. Every time he'd come he'd tell her roughly the same thing, and every time she'd kick him out in the end. And she had no patience for those meetings anymore. Yet, she let him in. "As usual." she muttered, doing her best to focus on the pencil. The Guest thanked her silently in his head, and floated silently into the observatory. Its darkness floated like a sheer cloak behind it. "I've come to collect you." "How do you feel?" -asks guest. He always asks this. "Unfortunately, my guest, I'm on the verge of a discovery." She said, jotting down various calculations in her notebook. It was not surprised in the slightest. He had, in fact, heard that exact same response many times before. "See? the exact time and coordinates of where my new planet will be visible. I'll build my own observatory there and wait, and then I'll most certainly discover the second planet to my name, with a stroke of my pen alone" said Star l'Etoile. "You never find out if the planet exists." -said guest "You died before you able to"

In the fast-paced rhythm of the city, a food delivery rider tirelessly races through day and night for work—unknowingly missing out on precious moments with his father. One day, he takes off into the sky in his self-modified flying delivery bike, only to spark a thrilling chase across the urban skyline. As he’s pursued by the police, the high-speed pursuit becomes more than just a race—it becomes a journey of reflection, as he searches for balance in life and rediscovers the value of connection and emotion.

Second-grader Cang Wenyou grew frustrated and indifferent because he couldn’t write his own name properly—little did he know that his name would vanish from his life as a result. Having lost his name, he was gradually forgotten by the world and swallowed up by darkness. Guided by the single remaining stroke of his name—the character for “one”—Cang Wenyou embarked on a journey to reclaim his name. Along the way, he came to understand the true significance of the transmission of written language, and ultimately, with the help of his ancestors, he recovered the name that belonged to him.

A lonely manin a desert attempts to solve his loneliness by making a robot. After having a dream where he feels genuine connection, and after realizing he can never recreate it, he breaks down.

Tom is different from other children. He doesn't like change, things that are red, and anything loud quickly becomes too much for him. His specialty is space. He loves to run around in his space suit, and in difficult situations he likes to wear a helmet. When his mother unexpectedly has to go to China, Tom has to stay with his grandparents. Or is it really an expedition to Mars? The movie is a funny and touching comedy about the great goals of an outsider whose otherness is at the same time his secret strength, and who brings together two generations that at first face each other like beings from strange planets.

“The Dance of Flowers” is a gothic horror about a female vampire and her family, whose evenings turn into refined rituals of seduction and death. Young men, invited into this mysterious circle, believe they are taking part in a sophisticated game and may achieve victory. Yet the chess match, where yellow and red roses replace the figures, becomes a deadly trap. Victory brings no triumph; instead, it leads to a fatal destiny. The atmosphere is filled with living sculptures that imitate violin playing and an entrancing tango, where the heroine whirls her chosen partner, turning passion into doom. In this world, art becomes a weapon, beauty a lure, and every gesture conceals treachery. Dance of Flowers is a story of seduction, female power, and the fine line between art and horror.

The water of a fountain reflects the face of a woman in a state of apparent hypnosis. From the moment she begins to move, the primordial and brutal need to bear witness to her own existence emerges. As it unfolds, the movement is not conceived as an isolated element, but as an integral part of the space that hosts it, in a continuous interaction between body and landscape. An emotional vehicle capable of transforming the place and restoring to it a state of mind. A continuous relationship between dynamism and petrification.

Alejandro, a shy and vulnerable young man, attends a party dressed as a priest and is mistaken for a real one by a criminal group who kidnap him. Forced to guide them spiritually, he must keep up the deception to survive, while struggling to stop hiding and, for the first time, face something bigger than himself.

A man asks his friend for help, he will receive this help, but in return he will have to pass an exam, which is not easy.

Filip is a paranoid man without a higher purpose, whose life is plagued by the onset of schizophrenia and a mysterious Stalker who appears in his dreams. As Filip struggles to overcome his anxiety and finally leave his home, he soon notices a strange figure outside. Panic sets in, and he breaks into a run - what begins as a quiet walk turns into a relentless chase, one from which there is no escape.

A 45-year-old office "plankton" is going through a midlife crisis and trying to overcome the image of his mother who forced him to live his life the way she wanted. "Plankton" is a word for a white collar worker.

After dying unexpectedly, a boy's soul wanders in limbo. At a night market, he meets a mystical cat and recalls a broken promise—to deliver a doll and an apology to his sister. With the cat's help, he inhabits the doll to fulfill this heartfelt mission.

At the border between two worlds — the earthly and the otherworldly — sits an old watchman, thoughtfully observing a fly. His philosophical musings are interrupted by a strange young man who suddenly approaches him with an unexpected question: “How do I get to heaven?” What follows is an absurd, at times comical, at times unsettling dialogue, full of mistrust, misunderstanding, and subtle irony. The watchman, accustomed to dull routines and simple rules, finds himself confronted with something that defies his world and logic. The young man, without a ticket but with unwavering conviction, tries to reach the place where “everything has already been prepared for him.” The ending is quiet and mysterious: the young man suddenly vanishes, leaving the watchman alone with a white feather — and an eternal question: what was that? This is a short animated parable about boundaries, misunderstanding, faith, and the mystery of passing from one world to another, with elements of absurdity and humor in the spirit of Daniil Kharms or Kafka.

A former assassin and interrogator is put out to pasture as a child psychologist, but he soon devises a plan to use the children in his "care" to perform the assassinations for him.

Solomon, a fifth-generation magician, attempts to escape the family demon that haunts him but becomes trapped inside an isolated hotel surrounded by black magic and the vengeful spirit of the forest. Inside, illusions blur with reality, demons lurk behind every door, and Solomon's protective "keys" grow weaker with each passing night. When Jacob, a bounty hunter driven into the woods, seeks refuge in the cursed hotel, the two men are forced into a dangerous alliance. Their only hope lies in confronting the ancient evil awakened within the walls – the Whisperer, a demonic ancestor bound to Solomon's bloodline.

A grieving Ohio banker hires the Pinkertons to find the men who murdered his son in a wartime payroll ambush; paired with the agency's first female detective, he uncovers a circle of ex‑officers turned killers — and must choose between the law and the vengeance that will cost him everything.

When the star hockey player of North-West High is accused of murder, he recruits an avid researcher from his class to help prove his innocence.

In the late 1990s Rana Mitter and Colby Snow were two very different young journalists in Southeast Asia chasing the ghosts of Pol Pot. Twenty-five years later the daring Colby is dead. And Rana, always in Colby’s shadow, sees his modest dreams dying too. His career is adrift and his marriage to a demanding Bangkok banking heiress is in trouble when the 40- ish Rana attends Colby’s funeral. Afterwards, he drives up a cold mountain to Colby’s rural cabin. Awaiting him there is a long hidden jungle interview of Pol Pot that Colby did days before the tyrant’s death. Rana’s luck proves short lived. Walking through Bangkok’s airport 24 hours later, tape in hand, he is abducted and taken to Sara the “yaba queen,” a violent drug lord with a penchant for muscular “muay thai” fighters and an obsession with her father: Pol Pot. Dismissive of the tape Rana has found, Sara threatens “Good Student” Rana. “I am your teacher now,” she says to him, and if the “real tape” isn’t found in 72 hours Rana will pay a brutal price for failure: His young family will die. Standing in Rana’s way is a ruthless American ambassador, the Golden Triangle drug lords and a besieged billion-dollar Southeast Asia tin mine. All are linked to Pol Pot’s missing tape. Rana’s search also dredges up the dark past behind his wife’s banking fortune and Rana’s own dormant guilt and corrosive self- doubt. By Rana’s side is his old boss, Bertie, a grizzled British editor gone to seed in the bars of Bangkok. Bertie helps Rana recover his faith in himself. In tow are a team of young reporters who work for Rana and who want to break the story of their lives. “I had given up expecting those last words, whose ring, if they could be pronounced, would shake both heaven and earth,” said Conrad’s Marlowe at the end of Heart of Darkness. Will Rana hear Pol Pot’s “last words”? If so, at what terrible price?