A-Z Short Films 2023

With only 100 kms left to go on the road trip a back seat argument begins to take shape, filling up the car, until mom has had enough.

Aroha, an imaginative young girl with Down syndrome, sets out to share her creativity with her neighbors.

During school hours, rideshare driver Zhao Mei gives a lift to a teenage girl, Yiyi. On the way to their destination, Zhao Mei slowly begins to question her role as a mother as she learns more about her young passenger.

Newly employed at the local emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness, Genevieve is gutted to see young Camille in need of a bed. As her social worker, Genevieve believed she had successfully supported Camille to find stable housing last summer.

A call centre employee uncovers the flaws in his stop motion universe with the help of a mysterious talking ostrich. Aussie director Lachlan Pendragon’s mind-bending work has recently been nominated for an Oscar, and rightly so!

Twelve-year-old Nejc, witnesses a classmate being bullied. Choosing to defend and befriend Timi, the seeming victim of this violent outburst, Nejc begins to calculate that Timi may not be as innocent as he professes.

On a class trip into the woods, Charlotte is confronted with her inner demons. Venturing alone into the icy forest, away from the pressure of the group and the obligation to eat, Charlotte will have to face her biggest battle yet, the one against her eating disorder.

Given his own limited abilities and the danger of physical injury, filmmaker Nikita Diakur decides to teach his computer-generated avatar to do a backflip. A comical look at AI learning and the value of human persistence.

Jules looks up to the stars in wonder at the worlds and galaxies we have yet to see, or even begun to imagine. Yet the world can be a scary place– who knows what’s out there?

A tongue in cheek smirk at the survival of the fittest. Two clueless birds try their best to protect their eggs from a volcanic, comedic eruption.

A darkly comic, stop-motion animated, musical/dance number about a man who has a peculiar moment of clarity upon considering the meaning of life. C'est la vie!

“If I couldn't remember him, what else can be left to prove his existence?” A young girl reflects on how to best remember and honour her late grandfather.

Driven by its own curiosity, a little seed stumbles out of its paradise-like habitat and into the unknown in a quest to shed its persona and discover what it truly needs.

A respected chef from a lineage of celebrated sushi makers attempts to connect with his son through shared knowledge of the family trade. Tensions arise as he begins to notice a fishy pattern of behavior in the young boy.

When a girl in ballet class comments on her hairy arms, a newfound insecurity begins to consume 12-year-old Lada. Despite her mother's disapproval, she decides to shave. Lada must find a way to honour her truth and return to class with her head held high.

In Northern Alberta, on the lands of the Chipewyan Prairie Dene First Nation, a young child watches as his father teaches him to make a caribou hide drum. In doing so, they reclaim these traditional practices for a new generation.

Every day when the ice is ready to bring to town, a father and his son jump with a parachute from their precariously placed home on a cliffside. João Gonzalez’s award-winning and visually mesmerizing tale of environmental woe premiered at the Cannes film festival and is now nominated for an Oscar.

During a game of hide and seek, Vanja turns into a dangerous tiger in order to overcome her fear of the dark.

Charming, observational, and experimental, shapes and colours define this world. When it shrinks, it expands. It floats and it sinks. It separates but connects. Am I watching them, or are they watching me?

It’s the same everyday, until one night a timid rock-monster arrives and breaks up the town’s routine. Shining her light, Luce ends up on an unexpected adventure, underscoring the value of both being and feeling at home.

New to town, Zaraya’s next-door neighbour invites her to go on a search for the legendary lake monster, N’xaxaitkw—known to settlers as Ogopogo. Zaraya is challenged to stay true to herself in the face of peer pressure and cruel intentions.

9 year-old Trang starts to shift out of oblivion while her aunt Ut tends to her terminal grandma as she struggles to breathe in the living room. How can a single body occupy so much space? What will happen when Grandma is gone? A stunning TIFF premiere by Vietnamese-Canadian director, Carol Nguyen.

At the dawn of their teenage years, Raphaël and Rémi, twins, see their fusional attachment crumble as disability holds one of them back. During one last summer surrounded by nature, time seems to want to stand still.

In a future not so unlike ours, Nima’s mom introduces him to his new baby sister, Gadon. When Nima’s jealousy rears, he resorts to shutting down the toddler in a bid for his mom’s undivided attention. Not everything is as it seems and Plaything will have you on the edge of your seat with dystopian surprises.

Muted water tones and delicate lines tell the story of a boy who has been told to let the fish go. A surprisingly short whale of a tale!

Three archetypal woodland spirits explore the conflicting human drives of creativity, possessiveness and our desire for status. Wondrous and magical, festival fave Ainslie Henderson offers up one his best works since his debut at R2R in 2017 with the award winning Stems.

Depicting the poet's most famous plays with individual flair and images that flow dynamically into one another, this is an homage to the works of William Shakespeare– in about 3 minutes.

Winner of the TIFF Best Canadian Short Film award and nominee for the Canadian Screen Award for Best Live Action Short Drama, “Simo”, is a compelling drama that delivers an unexpectedly tender take on growing up in an all-male immigrant family, and solidifies director Aziz Zoromba as a true talent on the rise. The rules of engagement aren’t necessarily the same for everyone, as it happens.

Granny is losing her memory, which makes it easy for young Amy to take advantage and get rewarded twice for her good grades. Based on the true story of filmmaker’s grandmother, Lidi Toepoel explores love and the ethics of caring for elders.

During a visit to her sister Amaliata, Rosa, a wise Wayuu woman, teaches her grandchildren the importance of reciprocity within their culture.

Tsiory, a city teen, is sent to spend the summer with his grandmother Mirana on Reunion Island. Reluctantly, Tsiory discovers an important part of his heritage, that of a Malagasy family marked by a history of slavery.

A man of modest means, Vahid’s dad surprises him with his first bicycle, which means he can finally participate in the school race with all the other kids. Unbeknownst to Vahid, the bike resembles his friend’s bike that has been recently stolen– quite suspicious.

A sophism is an argument that is apparently correct in form but is actually invalid, and often is used to deceive or to obscure the truth. Facing the climate crisis, Louise, a philosophy teacher, turns her words into action, inviting scrutiny from her students and the school’s administration.

A small town in southern Italy is shaken by the passing of a young dancer who died of anorexia. She represented the ideal standard of beauty and talent for her classmate, Ester, who suffered this loss more than anyone knows. Ester now struggles to survive the fate her friend was consumed by.

An eight-legged force of fate spins a complex web in Alicia Eisen and Sophie Jarvis’ new stop-motion film, Zeb’s Spider. What begins as a way to cope with an uninvited arachnid soon takes on a monstrous life of its own.