Mr Cod fills water into a pool located in a light blue tower. This is important work, because without water, the tower begins to suffocate like a fish out of water. The water gushing from the pipes into the pool silences the tower’s gasping mouths, but at the same time causes the tower to sway. Miss Seagull has shut herself inside the tower and is trying to keep the tilting tower in balance. However, their frantic efforts only make the system more unstable. The tower grows louder, and the waves in the pool grow stronger, until all at once the equilibrium is thrown off balance. Something shatters, something falls into place. The secret sides of Mr Cod and Miss Seagull are revealed.
Rebel Frame is an Estonian film studio focused on animation and documentary production. Currently, there is a slate of animated shorts as well as a few long-form projects in different stages of production. We work in traditional stop-motion techniques (puppet, cut-out, etc.) as well as drawn animation and 3D. As of late, our unique specialisation has been frame-by-frame painted animation on glass or canvas, for which we have designed a unique filming set-up. We are also focused on co-production, working currently with Lithuania and France.
Mari Koff (Mari Kivi) is a director and artist who graduated from Pallas Tartu College of Art in 2010 with a degree in painting and from the Estonian Academy of Arts’ animation department in 2018 (BA, cum laude). Her diploma films Food Chain and Contact (2018) were screened at many animation festivals such as Annecy, Kaboom, Mecal Pro, Animateka, Palm Springs, etc. In 2019, Food Chain was shortlisted among the top 10 BAFTA student films. In 2021, she founded the Animist Tallinn animation festival. In 2025, her puppet stop-motion film Eating Time premiered. She currently works as an animator and artist and is developing a new film with Rebel Frame.
Sergo Kibus is an animation director, screenwriter, creative producer, and co-founder of the film studio Rebel Frame. Sergo holds degrees in photography and audiovisual media, and an MA in Asian Politics and Societies with a focus on Chinese indie animation and Japanese cyberpunk. His animated short Teofrastus (2019) received 15 awards and has been screened at more than 40 film festivals. In 2022, he directed a stop-motion horror short, The Undertaker, which is streaming on international platforms. His current film Schrödinger, in production, was a winning project at the Baltic Pitching Forum 2021. The oil-painted short is produced in co-production with the Lithuanian animation studio Akis bado.
Kadriann Kibus is an animation producer and documentary director, partner of the film studio Rebel Frame. She has a slate of animated films in different stages of production, an animated series in development, as well as a feature-length documentary in post-production. As a producer, she puts emphasis on international co-production. The films she produced have been selected for major film festivals such as Cannes, Annecy, Sarajevo, Animateka, Feinaki Animation Week, etc. In 2024, she was one of the 10 up-and-coming producers invited to take part in the Cannes SFC Cinéma de Demain New Producers’ Room initiative.
In a small Estonian village, widows continue living with AI-powered versions of their deceased husbands stored inside smart speakers. Their quiet routine is disrupted when Kaspar, a real man from the city, moves into the village and becomes the object of fascination, desire, and obsession among the lonely women. As tensions grow between the women and their increasingly jealous digital husbands, the village spirals into absurdity and chaos. What begins as curiosity soon escalates into a conflict between humans and machines over love, control, and the fear of being replaced.
Wedia is an independent production house based in Estonia, focused on developing and producing original narrative films. Alongside commercials and music videos, we champion distinctive directorial voices and stories that explore identity, vulnerability, and contemporary society.
Liina Särkinen is an Estonian film director, educator, producer, and cultural leader working at the intersection of youth filmmaking, documentary, feature film, and international collaboration. She is the founder of Cinema House Film School for youth and one of the key organisers of the International Youth Film Festival. Liina teaches film across national and international school contexts, including the IB Diploma Programme, and regularly leads workshops, university lectures, film camps, and creative projects that empower young people to tell meaningful stories through film, including an International Film Camp for young filmmakers.
Kirill Volkov is an Estonian film and commercial producer and founder of the production company Wedia. His portfolio spans branded content, narrative projects, and music videos. In 2024, he produced his first feature film, Two of Me (dir. EskoBros), in collaboration with Tallifornia. In 2025, Rolling Papers (dir. Meel Paliale), produced by Volkov, was selected as Estonia’s submission for the International Feature Film category at the 2026 Academy Awards.
A burnt-out mother lies to her family about going on a work trip. When she finally manages to drop off the children at a summer camp, she arrives back home to spend a week of holidays by herself. But once the children are gone and the house falls silent, she struggles to recognise herself outside the roles of mother, worker, and partner. As the days pass, she drifts through her home, slowly shedding routines and expectations, coming face to face with the person she has forgotten: herself.
Hanna-Mirtel is an Estonian filmmaker dedicated to women’s stories. Her short film Let the Light Rise Upon the Forest premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and was selected for festivals including the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and Gijón International Film Festival, among others. She studied journalism at the Baltic Film and Media School in Tallinn and recently graduated with a BA in Film from the Catalyst Institute for Creative Arts and Technology in Berlin. Inspired by her neopagan post-Soviet upbringing, she explores themes of connection and aims to peel back the layers of human nature, shedding light on often-concealed parts of our existence.
A family gathers at home for the mother’s 55th birthday. At first, it seems like an ordinary celebration, but it gradually becomes clear that everyone has come with their own agenda: the children and the ex-husband want to discuss the future of the house – its sale. The celebration takes a grotesque turn and gradually transforms into an absurd, nightmarish, and comical world of Latvian dreams.
Trickster Pictures is an international creative studio based in Riga, developing bold, author-driven fiction and documentary films with emerging and diverse voices. Working across Europe, Asia, the USA, and the Baltics, the company creates cinematic stories that resonate beyond borders and foster empathy through unfamiliar perspectives. Founded by Matīss Kaža, whose work has screened at Cannes, Annecy, Locarno, TIFF, and other major festivals, Trickster champions ambitious international storytelling.
www.trickster.lv
Egija Smeile is a Riga-based film director, artist, photographer, and radio host. She studies film directing at the National Film School of the Latvian Academy of Culture and has studied architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Her work moves between moving images, photography, music, and visual culture. She has directed and produced the short film Balcony (2023), the short documentary Trees (2025), as well as several music videos, and has worked as a set photographer and visual communications designer on several film projects.
Tabita Paula Avotiņa is an emerging film producer and audiovisual arts professional currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Audiovisual Arts Production at the National Film School of the Latvian Academy of Culture. She has contributed to a diverse range of films, television, music videos, and festival projects, including the Icelandic and Latvian co-production Vakan, the documentary short Nabassaite, the feature films Visiem vajag naudu, Mildas istaba and The Flaw, as well as the TV series Riets and Fon Films’ social media series Fixers. Her multidisciplinary experience spans producing, production coordination, location management, casting, photography, and festival coordination.
Matīss Kaža (1995) is an Academy Award-winning Latvian producer, director, and writer. He is best known for co-writing and producing the animated feature film Flow by Gints Zilbalodis, which won an Oscar and the first-ever Golden Globe for an independent animated feature. Recent producing credits include the Warsaw Film Festival 1+2 Competition Winner, Sisters by Linda Olte, and Drowning Dry by Laurynas Bareiša, which won two awards in the Locarno Main Competition.
A former Hollywood A-list actor of slightly faded fame, John Malkovich, comes to an Eastern European capital to direct a local theatre play, setting all kinds of rumours spreading like wildfire around the sleepy town. The unseen film crew tries to find the A-lister’s whereabouts by meeting people who (claim to) have met him. Meanwhile, the man himself moves in the shadows, also not being free of the desire to exoticise his surroundings. The threads do come together in the grand finale – the premiere of a theatre play.
lldze Felsberga is a young film director with a deep interest in conceptual cinema. Starting her devotion to film as a critic, she later turned to making her own, the first of which was Darwin’s Darlings, a creative documentary on the animals on both sides of the separating glass in zoos. Ildze’s next film – the deadpan comedy Where does the sun sleep at night?, was inspired by her growing up in an ethnographic museum deep in the woodlands of the eastern part of Latvia in the 1990s. Both films had successful festival runs, with the second film currently travelling around the world. Ildze is now working on a mysterious chase movie as well as writing a metal-inspired radio theatre play.
In a working-class neighbourhood in Riga, 10-year-old Olafs moves through a world where belonging is defined by subtle rules and silent hierarchies. His only refuge is a daily ritual in the school cafeteria, where he eats bacon buns in quiet solitude. Eager to fit in with a group of confident boys, Olafs distances himself from Kasīts, a quiet outsider who offers him a genuine connection. When Olafs is briefly accepted, the illusion quickly collapses, leaving him humiliated and alone. Returning to the cafeteria with empty pockets, he is forced to confront the cost of trying to belong. Only through a small act of kindness is he offered a way back.
Founded in 1995 and based in Riga, Latvia, Studio Locomotive is an independent production company specialising in feature films, creative documentaries, and animation. Focused on auteur-driven storytelling and international co-productions, the company develops original projects, collaborates with partners across Europe, and provides production services for international shoots in the Baltics. Its films have premiered at major international festivals.
Žanete Skarule is a Riga-born filmmaker working across fiction, documentary, experimental cinema, and VR. She has an MFA in Film Directing from the California Institute of the Arts. Influenced by avant-garde cinema and filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas, she worked at Mekas’ New York studio until 2012, when she began developing her own filmmaking practice. Her debut feature documentary Flying Monks Temple (2017) received international recognition, followed by works including the poetic film Fable (2019), the fiction short No Regrets (2022), the UKMVA-winning music video for Zebra Katz’s MOOR (2021), and the magical realism short Big Loop –Small Loop (2025).
Dominiks Jarmakovičs is a Latvian film producer and production manager based in Riga. He works across fiction, documentary, and animation projects, with experience in international co-productions, film restoration, and audiovisual arts. Holding a degree in audiovisual arts and an MBA background, he has collaborated on numerous European film projects as a producer, co-producer, and line producer. Dominiks is currently affiliated with Studio Locomotive, focusing on auteur-driven cinema and international collaborations.
Grandma keeps herself occupied with household chores and small projects. Her greatest source of comfort is her phone, calling or receiving calls from friends. As the days pass, the calls grow fewer. One by one, the names in her phonebook are crossed out, and she fades away with them. One day, the phone rings, but no one seems to pick up.
Akis bado is an independent film production company based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Founded in 2019 by producer Giedrė Burokaitė and director-animator Robertas Nevecka, the studio is dedicated to telling raw, unexplored stories through both animation and live-action. Akis bado champions original voices and supports the most distinctive local talents. In 2024, the studio released Toxic, the debut fiction film by director Saulė Bliuvaitė, which won the prestigious Pardo d’oro at the Locarno Film Festival.
Nina Chubinishvili was born and raised in Tbilisi, Georgia. She is currently pursuing the Re:Anima joint Master’s programme in animation. Alongside her studies, she works as a graphic designer and illustrator. Nina has contributed to numerous commercial projects, including collaborations with Pocket Studio, with upcoming animated shorts such as When the sea was calm by Mamuka Tkeshelashvili and Glass Elephants by Dominyka Adomaitytė and Vykintas Labanauskas.
Giedrė Burokaitė is a Lithuanian film producer and co-founder of the studio Akis bado. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Cultural History and Anthropology, and a master’s degree in Arts Management. An Emerging Producers graduate and EFA member, Giedrė has produced a variety of shorts and documentaries, including the acclaimed feature documentary Animus Animalis. She works across animation and fiction, with her recent production, Toxic, by director Saulė Bliuvaitė, winning the Pardo d’oro at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival.
Walks. I Love, Therefore I Am is a poetic mixed-media animation film inspired by the life of Ona Šimaitė, who risked her life to help Jewish people imprisoned in the Vilnius Ghetto during the Second World War. Through a series of walks across a fragmented landscape of memory, the film follows Ona’s efforts to carry messages, food, documents, books, and hope across the boundaries imposed by persecution and violence. As memories, names, and objects emerge from and sink into a space of remembrance, the film explores the fragile relationship between memory and forgetting.
Kadrų Skyrius was opened in 2019 and is still thriving as Lithuania’s first studio dedicated to stop-motion animation. The company is run by Justė Beniušytė and Ignas Meilūnas. Oriented towards, but not limited to stop-motion creation, be it a film, commercial, or any other visual task – we have the ability to build sets, puppets, and props, and to shoot in our 130 m² studio that is fully equipped with tools and a team of handcraft perfectionists.
Gintarė Valevičiūtė-Brazauskienė is a director and interdisciplinary artist working in the fields of cinema and contemporary art. In her practice, she develops research into expanded animation and documentary, combining moving image, installation, drawing, and archival material. She currently lives and works in Vilnius.
Justė Beniušytė is a short film producer with more than ten years of experience in the audiovisual industry. In 2019, together with director Ignas Meilūnas, she co-founded Kadrų Skyrius, which was at the time Lithuania’s first and only film studio dedicated specifically to stop-motion animation. As Executive Producer and Studio Manager, she oversees the concept development, financing, production, and distribution of independent animated films and international co-productions. Her work focuses on supporting auteur-driven animation projects and fostering international collaboration within the European sector.
A young woman struggles to zip up her jeans. The stuck zipper becomes a portal, carrying her through a journey between past and present as she reflects on her relationship with her body. Through reconnecting with her surname, encountering an angry neighbour, and being compared to her sister, she begins to confront how her reflection falls outside accepted aesthetic norms. In the end, through humorously deciding to change into a skirt, she chooses to shift her perspective. In this way, she takes the first steps toward healing.
Art Shot is a Lithuanian animation production company founded by producer Agnė Adomėnė in 2012 that focuses on developing and co-producing artistic animated films for an international audience. Built on three principles – high production value, artistic sensibility, and international co-production – most of Art Shot’s films have been recognised at festivals such as Sundance, TIFF, Annecy, Locarno, Rotterdam, and Clermont-Ferrand, and have received numerous awards, including four Lithuanian Film Academy Awards.
Emilė Maigytė is a director and animator with 8 years of experience in the animation industry. Her practice includes the creation of digital 2D animations and the production of experimental and commercial projects. She is the co-founder of the Emilemilija Animation Studio, a female-led studio based in Vilnius, Lithuania, with an international clientele. Over the years, Emilė has created a large network of collaborators spanning from musicians and illustrators to music and film festivals. Currently, she is developing her debut film Meat Jelly.
Marija Lenkutytė-Bartoševič is a junior producer at the animation production company Art Shot. She is being mentored by the company’s founder and producer Agnė Adomėnė. Marija contributes to various stages of animated projects, including the short film Meat Jelly. With experience in international productions and a background in history and arts management, she focuses on project coordination and development, aiming to grow within the animation industry and support the creation of internationally relevant films.
Agnė Adomėnė has been working as an animation producer for more than 10 years. She produced the award-winning short films Way Better, The Juggler, and The One Who Knows. Many of them received awards at various film festivals or the National Film Awards. She also co-produced the animated feature The Peasants, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
At dawn, a small lizard, with its tail cut off, escapes from a child’s hands. We’re in Valle d’Aosta, near a mountain farm. Time to milk the cows, but the routine is interrupted: François witnesses the birth of a goat. The kid seems doomed. To spare him worry, François’ parents hide the truth. That night, restless, François returns to the stable and discovers the kid has two heads. Soon after, it dies. Shaken, the boy drifts in and out of sleep, haunted by visions. At sunrise, he returns to the woods where he saw it, waiting for the sun. When the light touches him, the kid bleats. François is stunned, and so is his mother, looking for him. The story ends on a fragile moment: perhaps something returned to life.
I Cammelli was founded in 1981 and, over the past 40 years, has built a successful legacy in the world of auteur cinema, participating over the years in the Locarno Film Festival, Biennale di Venezia, Annecy Film Festival, and Berlinale. In 2012, the company reinvented itself with an ambitious vision: bringing together diverse professional expertise within a single structure encompassing writing, production, and audiovisual post-production. The result is a young, curious, and forward-thinking team, firmly rooted in the history of Italian film production.
Irene Dionisio (Turin, 1986) is a filmmaker and visual artist. Her documentary The Factory Is Full – A Tragicomedy in Eight Acts (2012) was presented at Visions du Réel and the Taichung Film Festival, her second documentary Shores (2015) won the Solinas Prize, the Scam Prize (Fr), the Cinema Verité Iran – Jury Prize and many others prizes. Her feature debut Le ultime cose (2017) premiered at Venice International Film Critics’ Week, earning nominations for the David di Donatello and Golden Globes Italy, and winning a Nastro d’Argento for Best Screenplay. Her work as an artist has been exhibited internationally, including at Magazzino Italian Art (New York), OCAT Shanghai, PAC Milan, Palazzo Grassi, ONU – NY and Gèneve and many others. In 2021, she received the Giuseppe Bertolucci Prize. Her second long feature film, Idda (2026) is in competition at Toronto Film Festival 2026 in Platform (Oscar qualifying competition). She’s a member of The Italian Academy – David of Donatello.
He grew up with a camera in his hands and developed his skills through hands-on experience in the field. In particular, he gained valuable experience on the sets of documentaries by Daniele Segre. Another influence that was fundamental to his professional journey was his meeting with cinematographer Luca Bigazzi, with whom he collaborated on various productions. Since November 2023, he has been Managing Director of I Cammelli and has embarked on his own creative and production path, which has already led to the making of documentary films such as Questo spazio può essere tuo by Alessandro Bernard, and the short films Murmur by Irene Dionisio and Sonmat, a Rantan story.
Marco Borromei is a film and television screenwriter. He graduated in 2015 from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC). His early credits include We’ll Be Young and Beautiful by Letizia Lamartire (Venice Film Festival 2018) and Small Body by Laura Samani (Cannes Film Festival 2021). He wrote the screenplay for Chlorophyll by Ivana Gloria (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2024) and co-wrote Idda by Irene Dionisio (Toronto International Film Festival 2026). For television, he wrote on the second season of Skam Italia and co-created the story for Blocco 181. He teaches at CSC and has been a member of the European Film Academy since 2023. In 2026, he was selected for the Berlinale Talents program.
If you look closely, you can still see it. If you listen carefully, you can still hear it. It is what remains of a legendary winged white crocodile, lying among the steep slopes of a distant mountain. For millennia it terrified us, keeping us away from the mystery it guarded. Now we wander in awe across its grey body, desperately trying to save it. Fusione (Melting) is a journey into the living matter of ice and its image through the centuries: a poetic, experimental attempt to shape a story that evokes ecological disaster through layers of symbols, visions, and sounds. It explores the bond between humans and glaciers through three times, three gazes, three acts.
Red Sled Films is a film production company founded in Aosta in 2024 by six professionals with extensive experience in the national and international audiovisual industry. The company aims to establish a stable production hub in the Aosta Valley, developing original films and supporting projects across the entire production chain. Its strength lies in the diverse backgrounds of its founders and a shared vision: building bridges between cultures while promoting the Aosta Valley as a place of creation with a truly international outlook.
Born in Brescia in 1986, he lives and works in Turin, Italy. A film director and visual artist, his practice ranges from ethnographic documentaries to multimedia projects. Through film, he explores memory, landscape, identity, and ritual. His research intertwines the languages of cinematographic storytelling, creative documentary, and audiovisual experimentation, with a constant focus on the participatory dimension of the gaze. He leads workshops on cinema in academies, universities and film festivals. He founded the OṃVideo collective and the HUN Cultural Association. He collaborates with artists, performers, and sound artists on installations and exhibitions.
A film director and producer, Gianluca Rossi graduated in Film Directing from ESEC in Paris and in Theatre Directing from CIC in Rome. He has directed theatre productions, short films, documentaries, and TV programmes. In 2008, he made his theatrical debut in Italy with the feature film Ho ammazzato Berlusconi, co-written and co-directed with Daniele Giometto. He is the author and producer of award-winning documentaries such as Mare Carbone and Se Ho Vinto Se Ho Perso, and is currently working on the international documentary Landscapes of Ending, supported by Rai Cinema. He is co-director of FrontDoc, film programmer for Cervino CineMountain, and tutor of the Itineranze Doc development programme.
Born in Turin in 1978, he graduated from MultiDAMS. Since 2006, he has combined documentary cinema and new technologies, working as a documentary filmmaker and author/producer of cross-media projects. Since 2015, he has worked with I Cammelli in creative and production roles. Inspired by Achille Judica-Cordiglia, the subject of his first film, and driven by radio broadcasting, in 2022 he began collaborating with Rai and RaiPlay Sound, creating podcasts and radio documentaries, including Poliuretano Espanso, Il guardiano del ceppo – Antennae (Best Sound Design Podcast Award 2023), Un comitato per via Arquata, Diorami, Cellule immaginali, and La mia ultima fissazione.
The Belly of the Whale tells the story of Jonas, a young Senegalese immigrant in Milan who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from crossing the Mediterranean, and an abusive father from whom he has fled. His longing for home gets more complicated when his path dangerously crosses with a violent baby gang, changing his life forever.
Founded by Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree, producer Mara Crăcăleanu, Melancholia Pictures is a UK and Romania-based production company championing bold independent films, series, and shorts that defy convention. Working across international co-productions, we develop award-winning stories with global reach. With work showcased at Torino FF, BFI Flare, TIFF, FIPADOC, DocuDays, and Rhode Island IFF, projects in development include an HBO docuseries and a folk-horror presented at SITGES, WEMW Trieste, TIFF Pitch Stop, and Berlinale Talents Sarajevo.
Niccolò is an award-winning creative based in London and Milan. His films have been presented all over the world at Oscar, BAFTA, and BIFA-Qualifying festivals and platforms such as the Young Director Award, Prime Video, Show Me Shorts, Brighton Rocks, Watersprite, and FIPADOC. His documentary project Near Light: Second Lives of Murderers began as an acclaimed short and is now expanding into a docu-series, selected at the prestigious MIA Market and Ex Oriente, is a winner of the Council of Europe Development Award, and is currently in development with HBO. He has been mentored by film professionals including Matt Syrett (Oscar-winner), Ruth Reid (Netflix, HBO), and Daniel Green (MUBI, Dogwoof).
Mara Crăcăleanu is a Romanian film producer and founder of Melancholia, a production company based in Romania and the UK focused on international productions. Her work has received over 70 awards and has been screened at festivals such as Torino FF, BFI Flare, TIFF, FIPADOC, DocuDays, and Rhode Island IFF, and at institutions such as XV Florence Biennale and the Hollywood Women’s Film Institute. She regularly participates in major film markets: EFM, Marché du Film, Venice, and MIA. Her HBO docuseries was developed through Ex Oriente Lab and awarded by the Council of Europe.
