Beautiful MenNicolas Keppens
Belgium, France, Netherlands丨18'53"丨2024
Three balding brothers travel to Istanbul to get a hair transplant. Stuck with each other in a hotel far from home, their insecurities grow faster than their hair.
Jury's Statement｜The director exposes each character’s flaws, leaving them to the audience for critique. Showcasing their selfishness, hypocrisy, and fragility makes the characters real, like any ordinary person who lives around us. Sometimes, regardless of gender, people share commonalities when confronting issues like aging and loneliness.
Singing of Birds and What Is Drifting AwayLezhi Yu
USA, China丨05'44"丨2024
Birdsong softens the crowded sorrow at a funeral, where a girl, bewildered, stands amongst the ritual's confusion. Filled with soft strokes and dreamy pencil textures, "The Singing of Birds and What is Drifting Away" weaves a delicate tapestry of childhood reminiscences and a melancholy so tender.
Jury's Statement｜With beautiful pencil drawings and bold camera angles, this fragile film catches a moment of personal grief.
Wild AnimalTianyun Lyu
USA, China丨12'36"丨2024
"In the Mongolian wilds, a hunter's heir. With his father, a bond so rare. Kindness within, midst nature's might. A tale of love, in the wild's wild fight."
Statement by Procreate｜Stylistically beautiful and masterfully narrated, “wild animal” is a deep emotional journey that stuck with us long after viewing.
Germany丨07'04"丨2024
Jury's Statement｜A touching story about the relationship between a girl and her grandmother, subtly depicting a loss seen through the child's eye.
France丨13'10"丨2024
This film received 71 votes from the audience, including children and parents, at the all-age screening of Feinaki Beijing Animation Week.
South Korea丨04'35"丨2024
Jury's Statement｜A brief storyline, simple music, and engaging composition paired with creative narrative details come together to create this moving and tender piece of work.
France丨02'29"丨2024
Jury's Statement｜Lively and cheerful music, vibrant and richly detailed animation—it inspires joyous energy and delivers unrestrained delight for all.
China丨04'47"丨2024
The mother and daughter, who lived in the same room, sparked a fire during their argument and eventually reached a settlement.
Jury's Statement｜With a slow but steady development, a doll house catches fire, which spreads to the whole world of a daughter and a mother!
Marta Monteiro
Portugal, France丨09'51"丨2023
A woman victim of domestic violence looks back at the years when she was married, recalling how difficult it was to stay afloat.
Jury's Statement｜Sometimes, it takes half of one's life to find the strength to leave daily horrors behind. Better late than never!
USA, China丨09'30"丨2024
A distressed woman's soliloquy. “That woman" comes to her city for a short stay. lnexplicable sensations torment her mind and body like meiyu, so she sinks into the reeds that grow out of the wounds on her finger. This film exposes a young woman's meandering feelings about sex and motherhood in relation to her chaotic perception of time.
Jury's Statement｜This film is like a dream pulled from the water, its contours indistinct. It sits beside you, radiating a humid warmth, sharing an intimate yet guarded presence. Much like the mother-daughter relationship depicted, it’s shrouded in mist and chaos, forever just out of grasp, its clarity constantly slipping away.
Nikita Meshcheryakov
Russia丨11'15"丨2023
While developing a game, a woman is hiding from reality and reflecting on the past and present. The farther it goes, the harder it is to find the borders of the reality.
Jury's Statement｜An unsolvable puzzle and an intricate narrative structure. This viewing experience mirrors the game depicted in the film. It doesn't plainly tell you what happened, but always leaves behind tantalizing clues, inviting the audience to piece together a story of their own imagination.
China丨07'10"丨2024
"Cockroach with Human Faces" is the director's undergraduate project. It's about the protagonist who breaks the legs of a creepy human-faced cockroach, only to be captured by the maddened crowd as a sacrifice to a new god, hosting a grand festival never before seen in a desolate village.
Jury's Statement｜A humoristic visual treat and a bizarre journey with humans and cockroaches.
Elli Vuorinen
Finland丨08'31"丨2023
Girls have been cultivated like flowers for generations. We need more growing seasons to breed new ways into the system.
Jury's Statement｜A brilliantly haunting satire about the cultivation of societal gardens of womanhood.
Jury's Statement｜From a selection of 40 GIFs, the jury chose "Fading Memory of Childhood" as the winner for its thoughtful interpretation of the "dream core" theme. The grids, emphasized with intersecting lines, combine the image of an autorefractor test and a jumping girl, perfectly complementing the loop playback requirement.