2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Sci-Fi

Two sisters confront their differing views on genetic engineering as they prepare to leave Earth with the final human survivors.

Director(s): Michael Vaughn Hernandez
Writer(s): Darren Bailey, Renée Veronica Freeman
Producer(s): Renée Veronica Freeman, Michael Vaughn Hernandez, Kally Khourshid
Key Cast: Renée Veronica Freeman, Folami Williams

Country: United States
World Premiere

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Source: FILA

2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Horror

In this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, Carter, a grief-stricken young man, and his mentor Warren, an elder female professor of the occult, search for a portal to the underworld in an abandoned cemetery.

Director(s): Xander Copp
Writer(s): Meg Rodgers, John-Paul Kaczur
Producer(s): Xander Copp, Bradley Cherry, Adam Schoales
Key Cast: Carson MacCormac, Elizabeth Saunders, Brian Quintero

Country: Canada
Los Angeles Premiere

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Source: FILA

2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Animation

Becoming an Oyster is a haunting animated journey through a boy’s eyes, where grief, addiction, and a crumbling planet intertwine in a surreal search for healing and meaning.

Director(s): Elizabeth Schneider, Michael Covello

Country: United States
Los Angeles Premiere

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Source: FILA

2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Comedy

A beleaguered wife discovers there’s more to her husband’s immature antics than meets the eye.

Director(s): Cate Fogarty
Writer(s): Cate Fogarty

Country: United States
World Premiere

 

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Source: FILA

2025 Official Selection: Featurette – Horror

A possessed Babushka doll unleashes a nesting chain of malevolent entities, forcing a mother and her young daughter to confront a legacy of generational trauma—unfolding through a narrative structured like the doll itself.

Director(s): Jon James Smith
Writer(s): Jon James Smith
Producer(s): Taylor Lawrence, Paul Sinacore 
Key Cast: Hayley McFarland, Quinn Aune, Taylor Lawrence, Richard Shelton, Daniel Joo, Mushond Lee, Paul Sinacore

Country: United States
Los Angeles Premiere

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Source: FILA