Shorts Programmes

Our Cinema ’26 Shorts’

Our Cinema is an innovative new approach to film education in Scotland delivered by Transgressive North and Folk Film Gathering and modelled on Japan’s world-leading

...

117 mins

15+

Bridging The Gap Shorts

EIFF is delighted to present the World Premieres of the most exciting new short form documentaries coming from Scotland, supported by the Scottish Documentary Institute

...

104 mins

12A

My Little Blue Heart

World Premiere

My Little Blue Heart

In a near future in rural Britain, Mustafa and his deaf sister Amna are torn apart by immigration vigilantes and their far-right policies. Amna escapes to search for her brother, only to witness a tragic event....

World Premiere

Iqbal Mohammed

2026

11 mins

12A

Bubbles

World Premiere

Bubbles

Justyna, an immigrant housemaid, grows close to her wealthy employer as her own living conditions worsen. Facing eviction, she discovers her landlady is her employer herself, exposing the power imbalance at the heart of their relationship....

World Premiere

Jagoda Tłok

2026

14 mins

15+

Shutterbug

World Premiere

Shutterbug

A rave photographer struggles to navigate a complex power dynamic with his boss, which comes to a head at an afterparty in Glasgow....

World Premiere

Fin Bain

2026

14 mins

15+

PANG

World Premiere

PANG

Surreal, sexy, and spectral. The summer before Cam leaves for university, childhood best friends Cam and Evie are haunted by the breakdown of their grey-area, queer friendship. As they laze by the pool, they test the limits of their relationship,...

World Premiere

Lara Delmage

2026

12 mins

15+

Saint Anthony

World Premiere

Saint Anthony

On the day of his devout Catholic mother’s funeral, Tony is conflicted on whether to attend due to the guilt of what he put her through. He confesses all to the audience, enters the church, and witnesses a miracle....

World Premiere

Declan Dineen

2026

12 mins

12A

The Angel In The House

World Premiere

The Angel In The House

Angela is living a life devoted to everyone but herself. Disconnected from her husband, Malcolm, and struggling to articulate her dissatisfaction, she leaves home the night before her family is set to attend a wedding....

World Premiere

Missy McNaught

2026

12 mins

Headphones

World Premiere

Headphones

Headphones that once played music now only muffle the sound of Zoë's parents ongoing arguments. Could meeting a stranger at the beach open new perspectives?...

World Premiere

Zoë Allmer-Sears, Freya Drever, Jannat Khan, Antia Quintero Villaverde, Andrew Watson, Isla Watt

2026

12 mins

The Last Whisper

World Premiere

The Last Whisper

Three school friends celebrate a birthday before heading into the woods for a camping trip. When one of them hears strange whispers calling from the darkness, she disappears into the forest alone. As night falls, will she return to her...

World Premiere

Jewel Binoy, Leon Bruce, Keira Keicher-Alanis, Adel Navratilova, Eilidh Smrek, Lexi Tait

2026

7 mins

12A

Horizons

World Premiere

Horizons

When Fiona visits her childhood home for her mum’s birthday, absent family members and her mum’s unsettling indifference to it forces Fiona to consider whether clinging to tradition is the best way forward....

World Premiere

Rachel Maclean

2025

13 mins

15+

User

World Premiere

User

In the not too distant future, a man without hope attempts to save the life he was hired to end with HELPER, a world changing technology that allows anyone to possess another's body at the host's request....

World Premiere

Isaac Sparks

2026

14 mins

Passing Place

World Premiere

Passing Place

Riley, a 23-year-old Asian woman, wakes on a surreal island after being mistakenly declared dead. Trapped in a bizarre afterlife bureaucracy that mirrors modern immigration systems, she must complete absurd tasks to prove her identity—or risk being erased and forgotten...

World Premiere

Hamza Bin Bin Tahir

2026

16 mins

12A

Ñuuyii (Earth)

European Premiere

Ñuuyii (Earth)

A space wanderer lands on an unkNown planet and recognises glimpses of forgotten memories....

European Premiere

Itandehui Jansen

2025

11 mins

15+

Skerry & May

World Premiere

Skerry & May

On a remote island, a woman reunites with the man she once loved and lost, leading to a final conversation that challenges them both to confront the nature of memory and identity, and of loving and letting go....

World Premiere

Edinburgh Napier University’s Screen Academy Scotland

2025

15 mins

Departures

World Premiere

Departures

With her home life deteriorating and her best friend and confidante Maya getting close with the new girl Elizabeth, will Abigail take the life changing decision to run away forever? And will Maya come with her?...

World Premiere

Ohenewaa Ewurama Amanfo, James Dodson, Clara Grace Mackie Gallardo, Anna Julia Melideo Redman, Laila Magdalena Orpel, Jay Elizabeth Pfohl

2026

8 mins

12A

Bergamot

World Premiere

Bergamot

Bergamot is an abstract, poetic, surreal look at the internal war one carries as a reflection of what it feels like to search for justice when your world is overshadowed by conflict....

World Premiere

Laleh Ajampour

2026

4 mins

12A

Abuela

World Premiere

Abuela

An intimate, investigative documentary retracing the life of Maria Jesús Echevarría. A brilliant, overlooked Spanish writer whose story was shaped by the wrong time, the wrong systems, and the right words....

World Premiere

Monica Echevarria

2026

16 mins

15+

HAG

UK Premiere

HAG

Our story begins with our heroine breaking up with her obnoxious boyfriend; what should be a moment of liberation instead transforms her from a regular thirty-something into a hag with snakes for hair. Hag battles society pressures, inner longings, and...

UK Premiere

Anna Ginsburg

2025

17 mins

15+

Hidden Trees

World Premiere

Hidden Trees

HIDDEN TREES is a poetic observational documentary set within the remote Scottish therapeutic community ‘Lothlorien’, where residents with severe mental health difficulties learn to sit with their inner turmoil through nature, routines and peer support. But as the seasons shift,...

World Premiere

Sophie van Bree

2026

18 mins

15+

No Place Like Home

World Premiere

No Place Like Home

Writer and filmmaker Michael Lee Richardson revisits a childhood favourite film and finds a secret hidden inside all along. Part biography, part personal essay, the film blends 80s nostalgia and camp aesthetics to reclaim the narrative of North East queer...

World Premiere

Michael Lee Richardson

2026

13 mins

15+

Cherry Picker

World Premiere

Cherry Picker

Cherry Picker is a visceral experimental documentary digging under the skin of the psychological power dynamics between landlord and tenant, where nothing is quite as it seems…...

World Premiere

Olive Jones

2026

10 mins

15+

When the Fires Stop

World Premiere

When the Fires Stop

Unease grips the town of Grangemouth as its largest employer gradually falls silent. The future of the town is uncertain. All we can do is watch on....

World Premiere

Matthew Dunsmore

2026

17 mins

15+

Amongst Men

World Premiere

Amongst Men

Amongst Men follows Brendan Holland, a man living with giantism, as he reflects on the life and contested legacy of his ancestor Charles Byrne, the “Irish Giant.” Through Brendan’s voice, the film asks who has the right to decide how...

World Premiere

Katie McFadden

2026

15 mins

15+

Feral

World Premiere

Feral

A young feral cat is caught and her kittens taken away to be tamed. A story which reflects on our own discord with the natural world....

World Premiere

Miranda Rose Carter-Watson

2026

11 mins

12A

Kontrewers

UK Premiere

Kontrewers

Kontrewers follows an imagined encounter between the ghost of a possessed girl, bound to a folktale and trapped within a stone, and the filmmaker’s 102-year-old grandmother, confined to her living room and nearing death. Drawn to the pious older woman,...

UK Premiere

Zuza Banasinska

2026

21 mins

Unidentifizierte Unflugobjekte (UUO)

UK Premiere

Unidentifizierte Unflugobjekte (UUO)

However permanent and stable any order may seem, it may eventually crumble when reality outside of the system creeps in, growing like organic matter through the boundaries that the order has imposed....

UK Premiere

Sasha Svirsky

2026

12 mins

15+

As I Lay Dying

UK Premiere

As I Lay Dying

We were many. When it was all over, we went our separate ways....

UK Premiere

Mohammadreza Farzad, Pegah Ahangarani

2025

15 mins

I am a River

UK Premiere

I am a River

Inspired by Pablo Neruda’s Book of Questions—a collection of lyrical, unanswerable poems that playfully interrogate nature, life, and the cosmos—the film weaves poetic inquiry with visual abstraction through the rarely used mordançage technique. Its veil-like formations evoke the fluid, fragile,...

UK Premiere

Heidi Piiroinen

2026

6 mins

How to Listen to Fountains

UK Premiere

How to Listen to Fountains

This film is about public space. This film is about the destruction of culture. This film is about fountains that have had enough. What would happen if fountains could speak?...

UK Premiere

Eva Sajanová

2025

10 mins

More events

Picked for you.

Imposters

A mother finds her missing baby, but her husband suspects he is not their son....

Caleb Phillips

2026

102 mins

Skintown

1994. As northern Ireland takes its first steps towards peace, best mates Vinny and Jonty are about to jump start their futures with the...

Kieron J. Walsh

2026

99 mins

Experimental Shorts

From haunted objects to living landscapes, these films trace porous boundaries between bodies, matter, memory and space. Traversing archives, protests, ruins and dreams, they...

124 mins