Shorts Block 1: Human Flow

Traverse cityscapes, valleys, highways, and borders through films by an international ensemble of storytellers. In these vivid portraits of gathering and return, the dialogue between people and land is as alive as human conversation. From an afternoon game of pelote in Belgium to climber Ashima Shiraishi’s meditations in the Payahuunadü valley, movement becomes both medicine and medium for connection. Latin American migration histories trace new paths along California highways, while lives intersect on the margins of bustling Guangzhou. A filmmaker celebrates his migrant parents’ homecoming in the Philippines, and a Sudanese family’s archives honor the resilience of displaced generations. These six films illuminate the people who shape places and move within them, flowing between past and future, private and public, estrangement and kinship, in tales of settling, returning, and finding home. —Sabrina Kim

Films are in alphabetical order rather than order of play. Total runtime 84 min

Drifting, South

Di Zhang (China, Canada 2025, 19 min)

An ambient snapshot of Guangzhou’s Xiaobei Road through the eyes of three individuals on the city’s margins.

highways take me anywhere I want

María Luisa Santos (USA, Costa Rica 2026, 8 min)

Against a backdrop of California highways and amidst the traces left behind by migrants, a father and daughter contemplate whether home is Cuba, Costa Rica, or elsewhere.

In the Morning Sun

Serville Poblete (Canada, Philippines 2025, 21 min)

“Alexa, what is the weather in the Philippines?” In a cinematic study of his migrant parents, Filipino Canadian filmmaker Serville Poblete explores intergenerational play, grief, and gathering.

La Petite Reine Blanche

Théo Hanosset, Mathieu Georis (Belgium, France 2026, 15 min)

Traffic comes to a halt in a small Belgian town when residents take over a parking lot to play a game of pelote.

Tamashi

Jess X. Snow, Ashima Shiraishi (USA, France 2026, 13 min)

Festival alumni Ashima Shiraishi and Jess X. Snow synthesize movement, landscape, and poetry as Shiraishi and their father, a Butoh dancer, pay tribute to the lost water of the Payahuunadü valley.

Villa 187

Eiman Mirghani (Sudan, Qatar 2025, 8 min)

A displaced Sudanese family’s voice notes and family archives chronicle memories made—and left behind—in their home of three decades in Qatar.