This is What We Mean By Short Films: Opening Night 2026

After managing to scrape together money to pay for an abortion after her Polish exchange student boyfriend gets her pregnant, the director decides to celebrate with a party.

During a train ride, Ariel and Paul pass the time sketching their deepest fears. Their game takes an unexpected turn when Gilda, a mysterious passenger, intrudes on their exchange. Yet, her relationship with fear seems far less innocent than their playful drawings.

Guided by the daily rhythms of an elite high-diving camp, Divers documents the restless anticipation of walking to the platform’s edge and the fleeting serenity found in jumping.

A young girl turns into a fish and recounts the territorial aggression being experienced by the fisherfolk in her hometown of Zambales.

A young woman is stuck in the waiting line of a telephone hotline. A surreal episodic short film about the absurdities of urban life and the feeling of paralysing stagnation.

Summer, 1980s. Rui Carlos and his friends spend their afternoons playing football. When the ball gets punctured, he is left alone to deal with the responsibility and challenges of adult life.

Racing through the Vietnam countryside and against time, a teenage girl embarks on a nostalgic summer road trip with old friends, wanting to return to a time and place that can no longer exist. A dreamy encapsulation of the hopefulness of youth and the reckonings of growing up.