71st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen

For employing minimalist animation with live action resurrected from family archives this film transports the viewer through Ansbach and the inner space of one woman's journey to find her great-grandfather who went through the labour camps of the Second World War. Making the past present, and bringing together history, documentary and critical personal reflection, Dear Leo Sokolosky is a wondrous cinematic diary that gives us the rare opportunity to pull back the curtain and peer into the depths of a human soul.

For inviting us into the atmospheric care-free world of childhood, a film which captures two sisters walking through the night as their father works as a security guard for an affluent neighbourhood. Contrasting the loneliness of locked up condominiums with the freedom of sisters discovering an open and wide world, Nocturne is a delicate work of social critique and an existential reminder of what it really means to live life embraced by love.

Agata's journey from Poland to Belgium offers a universal perspective on leaving one's homeland and explores identity and tradition with sensitivity. In times of political and social polarisation, the film confronts the fear of otherness and provides a valuable insight into human connection that resonates across all age groups.

Happy Snaps offers a sensitive portrayal of a friendship that must face the challenges of separation and loss over the course of the film. It provides an important and inclusive perspective on relationships shaped by the human need to hold on and the emotional process of coping with change.