These are our twelve recommended international short films from the Busan International Short Film Festival, which will take place from April 25 – 30, 2024 in Busan, Korea.

2720 by Basil da Cunha – Portugal, Switzerland | 2023 – 25 minutes | Asian Premiere

After a violent police raid in a poor clandestine neighbourhood in Lisbon, a 7-year-old girl seeks to find her missing older brother. At the same time, a young newly released ex-convict tries to start a new, free from a life of crime. The fate of these two will cross in the worst way. (BISFF 2024)

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Antipolis by Kaspar Jancis – Estonia | 2023 – 26 minutes

Some people believe that the Earth is flat. And then there are those who think that somewhere there, under the Crust of the Earth, another civilization exists. The events of “Antipolis” take place in the world inside the Earth. Unlike some of the well informed inhabitants of our civilization, the occupants of Antipolis have no idea that they are living inside a gigantic globe. Getting to know this is a sobering shock. (BISFF 2024)

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Be Somebody by Michał Toczek – Poland | 2023 – 28 minutes | Asian Premiere

A common guy, an electrician named Wiktor moves in with his family to a new apartment. Soon they find out that the apartment used to belong to Lech Walesa, a former Polish President and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, who started out as an electrician. Wiktor’s wife, Sylwia, starts to make money on foreign tourists, turning their new home into a museum and her husband into Walesa’s impersonator. Sylwia’s new obsession leads to Wiktor’s confrontation with Walesa’s legend. (BISFF 2024)

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Been There by Corina Schwingruber Ilić – Switzerland | 2023 – 10 minutes | Korean Premiere

Weekend trips, city breaks, a detour into nature or once around the world. Barely a few days off, you’re already gone. Never before has the desire to travel been so widespread and visited places so overloaded. What do we get out of it, other than the picture proof that we have been there? (BISFF 2024)

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Calf by Jamie O’Rourke – Ireland | 2023 – 15 minutes | Asian Premiere

In this shocking and stylistically assured drama Cáit is faced with a terrible decision to make. A gut-wrenching film from way out in the countryside, a place where the worst things are silenced. (BISFF 2024)

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Fata Morgana by Daood Alabdulaa – Germany, Syria | 2023 – 29 minutes | Korean Premiere

Truck driver Abu Husain, like many guest workers in Qatar, spends endless hours in a self-contained world of standing, waiting, and tenaciously moving trucks on the fringes of society. (BISFF 2024)

Going South by Alan Sahin – Switzerland | 2024 – International Premiere

Dogs walking on the breakdown lane, bachelorettes partying in the car and a bored child looking for something to do. Thousands of impatient travellers are trapped in the traffic jam of the century. Ahead lies the Gotthard Mountain, one of the longest tunnels in the world, the gateway to the sunny South. Glued to the asphalt, climate activists are heating up the mood even more. Who will snap first? (BISFF 2024)

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MINUS ONE by Omer Ferhat Ozmen – Turkey | 2024 – 15 minutes | Asian Premiere

Enver is disturbed by the ‘smell’ in the building and believes that the new tenants at the basement are the reason. He starts collecting signatures from all the residents in order to move them out. (BISFF 2024)

Mothers & Monsters by Edith Jorisch – Canada | 2023 – 16 minutes | Asian Premiere

For a very special celebration, a host-mother has gathered mothers and their perfect children for a great banquet. Orchestrated by the host-mother, the banquet is suddenly disrupted by strange disturbances. What is hiding behind the scenes of this perfect ideal world? < Mothers and Monsters > is a surrealist satire about modern-day maternity and the ideal of the family at a time where capitalism has reached its apex. (BISFF 2024)

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The Coming Insurrection by Antonio Llamas – Spain, France | 2023 – 24 minutes | International Premiere

On another day, a group of policemen guard the outskirts of a city. There is no one else on the streets. They wait for an order to go into action. However, that order never comes and a state of confusion and disorientation begins to take hold of them, until they forget what they were doing there. (BISFF 2024)

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The Night Inside by Antonio Cuesta – Spain | 2023 – 24 minutes | Asian Premiere

Belén, a young nurse, wakes up after being attacked. She is accused of ending the life of a child after giving him medicine. But she claims she injected the right medication and that she can prove it. (BISFF 2024)

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The Talent by Thomas May Bailey – UK | 2023 – 15 minutes | Asian Premiere

On the set of a luxury car commercial, an overlooked assistant seizes his chance to get noticed by the star. Filmed on a Virtual Production Stage, The Talent is a tense exploration of masculinity, desire and becoming. Starring Golden Globe nominee Emma D’Arcy. (BISFF 2024)

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For more information, please visit: https://www.bisff.org/eng/