The theme of the February 2025 ROMANCE Festival was “External conflicts in Relationships”
AUDIENCE AWARDS:
Best Short Film: ATLS
Best Story: A ROBOT ROM COM
Best Direction: RACHEL AND RAHA
Best Cinematography: DUNES
Best Performances: HIRA
Best Micro-Short: HONEYMOON
Best Visual Design: TEENAGE LOVE FOREVER
Best Romance Film: SING ME TO SLEEP
SEE THE LINEUP OF FILMS:
ATLS, 11min., Canada
Directed by Mishka Balilty
In a dystopian future where a powerful elite class prolongs their lives by exploiting young women for their babies’ organs, two women find themselves on the run from their oppressors. Desperate to escape the fate of forced impregnation and organ extraction, they flee to a remote cabin. Their refuge becomes a sanctuary where they share their dreams and fears, finding solace in each other’s company. However, their fleeting happiness is overshadowed by the ever-looming threat of capture. Their love story, which began in desperation and hope, culminates in a tragic and devastating finale. ATLS is a powerful exploration of love, freedom, and the inescapable shadows of a world that seeks to tear them apart.
https://www.wtfimproductions.com/registration
A ROBOT ROM COM, 7min,. USA
Directed by Jonathan Hludzinski
A romantic comedy about a pair of robots who learn that love isn’t easy even if you can download it directly into your CPU.
DUNES, 10min., France
Directed by Virginie Kahn
It could be a Harlem theater in the fifties. Two strangers share the same emotion while watching a movie. The cinema exit door opens onto an imaginary desert where they will meet, alone in the world, around a dance that is sometimes tender, sometimes dramatic, and soon playful. A tribute to the feelings we share when going to the cinema.
LOVE LETTER TO GLASGOW, 6min., UK
Directed by Myria Christophini
An experimental animated short that makes an artistic commentary on the perception of some Glaswegians on romantic love.
http://myriachristophiniart.com/
https://www.instagram.com/myria_christophini/
HIRA, 10min., Italy
Directed by Emanuele Colognese
Hira loves sunflower seeds, the red color, and the silence that envelops the world when she extinguishes it, for she possesses this power. Meanwhile, Matteo adores Haribo candies, Rubik’s cubes, and Russian literature. One day, these two individuals cross paths (or rather, collide), and their anonymous bodies become familiar faces, with their piercing blue eyes and thick curls. It takes just a little to intertwine two existences. But how can the same knots be untangled? Against the backdrop of a modern Milan, two stories unfold, not of love but of life.
RACHEL AND RAHA, 16min,. Canada
Directed by Nedda Sarshar
Rachel and Raha is a short film about second chances and how the people in your past make reappearances at strange moments in your life. Rachel is a grad student living in her parents house in North York and enjoying her summer break when her old best friend (a girl who ghosted her in middle school) moves into her grandparents home across the street.
HONEYMOON, 4min,. Switzerland
Directed by Anaëlle Morf
A man and a woman meet in a bar for the first time.
SING ME TO SLEEP, 25min., USA
Directed by Mario Valdivieso
“Sing Me To Sleep” follows the story of a young couple by the name of Marc and Julia. Julia has been diagnosed with cancer, and she is at the point where her disease has become terminal. Marc decides to take his dying wife home so they can make the most of their last days together.
https://www.instagram.com/sing_me_to_sleep_film/
TEENAGE LOVE FOREVER, 5min,. UK
Directed by Imogen Harrison
A visual poem about love, communication, surrender, and being human.
WILDsound Festival 