Boys
Director: Olive Bilic
English | Australia
8 min | Narrative
Overwhelmed by the chaos of class, neurodiverse teenager Jacob seeks refuge in an empty locker room, only to find himself facing an unexpected confrontation.
Bad Survivor
Director: Alex Dvorak & Katie North
English, Spanish, Czech | USA
11 min | Narrative
When sarcastic teen, Alex, is “broken up with” by her oncologists who can’t wait to get rid of her, she’s ripped out of the chaotic hospital life she finds cozy, and sent back home to her multicultural family. Despite trying to pick up where she left off one year ago, her overbearing immigrant parents, hypochondriac sister, and MIA best friend have all moved on.
This is remission. But Alex doesn’t ring a bell to celebrate, throw on a cancer ribbon t-shirt, or organize a multi-million dollar fundraiser. Instead, she begs for her daily morphine drip, clings to her radiation mask as a safety blanket, reminisces about gory hospital stories, and plays heart monitor beeps in her headphones to fall asleep. Despite everyone’s high expectations of her, she can’t get herself to play the part of the inspirational survivor.
She’s a bad survivor and everybody knows it.
Sūnna (Listen)
Director: Radha Mehta
English | United States
13 min | Narrative
Lakshmi, a young girl, rehearses on the piano for a temple performance when she suddenly realizes she cannot hear the notes. At the ceremony, her fears are confirmed: she sings painfully off pitch, forcing her mother, Savita, to stop her mid-performance. Humiliated, Lakshmi storms out, narrowly avoiding being struck by a car thanks to Savita’s quick intervention.
Medical tests reveal the truth—Lakshmi has permanent hearing loss and requires hearing aids. The diagnosis devastates both mother and daughter. Savita confides in her husband, away on construction work abroad, while Lakshmi struggles with frustration and grief, asking her mother, “What’s wrong with me?” Savita offers comfort, though she is unsure how to face this new reality.
The next morning, silence hangs between them until Lakshmi rises to experiment with the instruments at home. Using memory, intuition, and the visual aid of a tuner, she begins to find new ways to connect with sound. Savita joins her, and together they recreate the song once lost at the temple—this time beautifully, in harmony.
SŪNNA is an intimate mother-daughter story of resilience and transformation. It is about grief, adaptation, and the enduring power of music and love, even when silence enters their world.
Once More, Like Rain Man
Director: Sue Ann Pien
English | USA
15 min | Narrative
Zoe, an autistic teen actor, sits through yet another audition where the adults behind the table label her “the autistic one,” joke that she “doesn’t look autistic,” and ask if she has an “autism super power” — you know, “like Rain Man.” Her dad Gerry, a struggling screenwriter trying to keep them both afloat, hustles her from room to room while she’s forced into role after role that reduces her to a checkbox. When Zoe overhears that her mom plans to move her in to increase her payments for having a “disabled kid” at home, the day turns into a battle for control of her own life—not just a booking. At a crowded final call, a casting assistant says the quiet part out loud: they want the character to be “more autistic,” and Zoe has to decide whether to perform a stereotype or tell the truth. What follows is sharp, funny, and cathartic—building to the inevitable when they ask her to do it “once more… like Rain Man.”
Misfit
Director: Tristan Zerbib
French | France
14 min | Narrative
In a world where disability is the norm, a wheelchair basketball team, the national sport, is caught off guard. They’re forced to train with an able-bodied person.
The program will run for approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.
