2025
Animal Nature Future Film Festival
ANNOUNCEMENT OF
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Between Salt and Sky
Felipe Rosa-Brazil | ChileJ
Short Documentary | 17 mins
From Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, Between Salt and Sky follows an ancient vicuña ritual now endangered by climate change and the global race for lithium. Between Salt and Sky unfolds in Boli.via’s Salar de Uyuni, where earth and sky blur into infinity. Ariel Flores and the Rio Grande community fight to preserve the ancient ritual of shearing wild vicuñas amid climate change and the looming lithium rush. Blending breathtaking landscapes with urgent questions of tradition, exploitation, and resilience, the film captures humanity’s fragile coexistence with nature and asks what we are willing to sacrifice in the name of progress.
Kali Waal
Jasper Baldwin Coppes-Netherlands
Short Documentary | 22:29 mins
In a lake scarred by toxic mud, Kali Waal listens to voices human and non-human, reshaping the story of nature itself. A group of foreign researchers travels to a lake marked by ecological controversy, where they uncover strange changes affecting both its waters and the lives of human and non-human inhabitants. As they record local experiences and observe the shifting landscape, the film reveals the complex relationship between pollution and ecological protection. At the heart of their journey lies an unsettling question: can a natural reserve truly be healed with toxic mud, as industries claim, or is deeper damage unfolding?
Something Mutual
Magaly Ugarte de Pablo-Mexico
Short Documentary | 5 mins
A poetic essay on the silent dialogue between Mexico City's flora and humanity, where light and shadow weave a botanical poem. Something Mutual is a visual essay that explores the presence of urban flora in Mexico City, giving voice to the plants that surround us. Through contemplative images and quiet reflection, it uncovers the hidden narratives of the city's nature and reveals the delicate connections between plants and people. Both poetic and vivid, the film stands as a testimony to resilience, inviting us to rethink our silent dialogue with these green companions and imagine a more harmonious coexistence.
UNDERDOG
MARJO LEVLIN-Finland
Short Experimental/Documentary | 30 mins
Underdog is a black-and-white experimental documentary where childhood memories of class divides, fractured families, and scarcity shape an inquiry into the lives of pedigree dogs. Through split-screen storytelling, the film draws sharp parallels between human and canine worlds, revealing how capital and class structure existence across species. Both intimate and radical, Underdog offers a provocative gaze at privilege, inequality, and the unseen forces that define belonging—for people and for dogs alike.
ASPIS
ANTONIO ROMAGNOLI-Italy
Short Experimental | 14:43 mins
Breathe in the cycle of life as a viper sheds its past and awakens anew. In untouched nature, a viper awakens from hibernation, resuming its cycle yet sensing a new awareness. Filmed across four seasons, the work transforms climate into narrative, imbuing natural elements with symbolic, transcendental meaning. Inspired by Malick’s Voyage of Time, it meditates on endings and beginnings, death and renewal. With imagery steeped in melancholy and wonder, the film reflects on eternal cycles of life, evoking both personal memory and ancient myth in a timeless landscape.
Scenic View
Maija Bláfield-Finland
Short Experimental/Documentary | 15:45 mins
An experimental essay film questioning how wild our wildernesses truly are, and how much of nature is staged. Scenic View explores Finland’s forests, where primeval wilderness has become so rare it feels fictional. Blurring documentary and artifice, the film questions whether commercial forests are real and whether staged nature films create truth or deception. With surreal, self-reflexive imagery, it challenges how we perceive landscapes and wilderness, probing the fragile line between storytelling and reality, and asking how wild our wild places truly are in a world shaped by human gaze.
ANIMA
LAU RAMO-Finland
Short Experimental/Animation | 13:23 mins
Through spectral animation and archival traces, Anima explores how life, memory, and environment intertwine across deep time. Anima follows the perspective of a primate who studies life through books, as images move closer—under the skin. Blending stop-motion animation with personal and archival footage, the film creates an associative exploration of distance, presence, and connection. Ghostly fragments of plants, animals, and memory evoke deep time and Earth’s hidden transformations, weaving a poetic meditation on our ties to other living beings, the environment, and the traces of the past.
Ginkgo and Other Times
Tang Han—China
Short Experimental/Animation | 15 mins
A poetic exploration of ginkgo trees as timeless witnesses, intertwining folk tales and reflections on human greed. Ginkgo biloba is a living fossil that has endured for over 200 million years, silently witnessing the passage of time. This poetic short film weaves elements of folklore with scientific reflection, tracing the tree’s life cycles and its deep connections to other forms of existence. As the ginkgo embodies resilience and continuity, the film invites viewers to reflect on nature’s temporality, the interdependence of life, and the enduring shadow of human greed.
Zootrope
Léna Martinez—France
Short Animation | 7:48 mins
Zootrope is a contemplative animated short that transforms a visit to the zoo into a layered meditation on sight and captivity. Rendered in muted tones, its hand-drawn frames build one upon another, forming fleeting silhouettes of animals and enclosures that gradually dissolve and reappear. A gentle voiceover accompanies the imagery, weaving poetry with reflection. Through symbols of boundaries, containment, and dissection, the film quietly asks: when we look at animals behind bars, what do they see when they look back?
Firewalk
Pink Twins—Finland
Short Experimental/Animation | 9:35 mins
Firewalk takes viewers on a pre-apocalyptic midnight journey through a burning forest, where flames signal both impending doom and a surreal gateway between realities. Created by Finnish duo Pink Twins, the short embraces chaos and deconstructs animated storytelling itself. Gloomy visions of catastrophe dissolve into the raw sketchwork of the medium, breaking the illusion of immersion while channeling a dark, Lynchian energy that lingers long after the final frame.
A Bear Remembers
Zhang Knight—United Kingdom
Short Drama | 20 mins
When a metallic echo stirs old memories, a boy and an elder step into the hills to meet a spirit of the land. A local boy, Peter, follows a strange metallic sound echoing through his village, capturing it on film. When he shares the footage with an old woman, it awakens her childhood memories of a roaming bear. Drawn together by the haunting sound, they journey into the hills, where myth and memory converge. There, amid echoes of the past, boy and elder encounter an ancient spirit, blurring the line between folklore, nature, and lived experience.
Surviving Alone: The Tale of Simone
Claire Louise Tomlinson—United Kingdom
Short Documentary | 15:13 mins
In Madagascar’s rainforest, Surviving Alone: The Tale of Simone follows the last Greater Bamboo Lemur as she faces isolation, resilience, and the urgent fight against extinction. Simone is the last Greater Bamboo Lemur in Madagascar’s Ranomafana rainforest. Once surrounded by family, she has lived alone for years—a social primate confronting the toll of isolation. Through the eyes of primatologist Dr. Patricia Wright and researcher Alba Schielen, the film follows Simone’s bold search for companionship and survival. Blending intimacy, tragedy, and resilience, this reflective documentary reveals how the biodiversity crisis impacts animals on the most personal, emotional level.
Goodbye Pig
Roberta Palmieri—Italy
Short Mockumentary | 5:39 mins
Goodbye Pig uses mockumentary form to record a pig’s final day, blending memory and imagination into a mockumentary diary. His journey from Spain to Italy mirrors human migration, marked by loss and hope. With an optimistic voice that contrasts industrial farming’s silent violence, the film creates a poetic space where the pig becomes a symbol of forgotten humanity and resilience, inviting viewers to reflect on life, displacement, and the unseen stories of those who cannot speak.
In Tune
Olivia Barnett-Brown—United Kingdom
Short Documentary | 10:50 mins
In Tune follows a horse trainer who replaces the whip with bone-conduction sound therapy, reimagining communication and coexistence between humans and horses. Horse trainer Neil Hormann is developing bone conduction sound therapy earphones for horses. Rooted in deep care beyond anthropocentrism, this invention seeks to replace the whip with sound, offering a nonviolent, holistic approach to training. If successful, it could transform the equine sport industry, shifting from abrasive practices to a future where communication and healing sound reshape the relationship between humans and horses.
Martha
Marcel Barelli—Switzerland
Short Animation | 6:53 mins
Martha recalls the fate of the passenger pigeon, once countless, now lost, through the lens of a mockumentary. A fake documentary about a true story: An old silent documentary from the 1910s has been found and restored. It tells the story of the most abundant bird on Earth, exterminated in just a few decades by human brutality.
From The Mountain We See The Mountain
Julián García Long—Argentina, Belgium
Short Documentary | 29:59 mins
Blending ethnographic documentary and magical realism, From the Mountain We See the Mountain reimagines Patagonia as a living, contested landscape scarred by fire, memory, and resilience. Close your eyes and imagine Patagonia: vast wilderness, pristine lakes, endless mountains. Yet beneath this mythical image lies a contested land scarred by deforestation, pine plantations, and fires intensified by climate change. Blending ethnographic documentary and magical realism, director Julián García Long reimagines Patagonia not as an untouched paradise but as a space of struggle, regeneration, and presence. Through a decolonial lens, the film questions how landscapes are represented and how cinema might subvert them.
Coywolf
Lucy Adams—United States
Short Documentary | 11:33 mins
Coywolf reveals how coyotes live alongside people in New York, showing the city’s wild side. In New York City, coyotes move quietly through streets and parks, creating an unexpected portrait of urban wildness. The film traces their hidden presence with lingering city images, subtle soundscapes, and camera-trap footage that reveal both biodiversity and fragility. Contrasting shots of animals, people, and fragments of urban life capture a sense of place with honesty and gentle humour. Through observation and cinematic detail, it reflects on how humans and wildlife share the same landscape in surprising ways.
Resqueue
Radu Nastasia—Romania
Short Documentary | 30 mins
Resqueue takes us inside Bucharest’s fragile frontline of animal rescue, where every saved life carries the weight of countless others still waiting. This film follows artist and activist Radu Nastasia as he documents the rescue work he lives every day. Driving a rescued cat named Red to the airport for adoption in Switzerland, he and fellow rescuer Ileana revisit past missions and the obstacles they face in Bucharest’s chaotic world of animal rescue. Without interviews or narration, the film reveals a fragile landscape of compassion, burnout, and persistence, where each small victory is shadowed by countless lives still waiting for help.
Angry Seagull
Hanfei Shi—China
Short Documentary | 5:08 mins
With Angry Seagull, the seagull claims its place as a true dweller of the city. Humans often see city seagulls as noisy and messy, yet their lives reveal another side of urban existence. Set in Cardiff, the film observes seagulls as they navigate streets, search for food, and raise their young amid constant noise. Through layered images and sounds, it uncovers the parallel realities of humans and birds, showing how different perspectives and anxieties intersect. The result is a fresh look at coexistence, reminding us that cities have never belonged to humans alone.
Anima Natura
Andrea Gudiño—Estonia, Mexico
Short Experimental/Animation | 5:58 mins
Anima Natura lets wind and emotion shape disappearing landscapes together. As a landscape begins to disappear, the wind reshapes what once seemed immovable—sometimes like a breath of life, sometimes like a looming disaster. In a blank notebook, the director records these shifting forms, responding with her own body and emotions. Intertwining memory, sensation, and materiality, the film creates fragments of visible landscapes that echo the invisible textures beneath them. A poetic meditation on change, it captures the urgency of documenting nature’s fragile transformations before they fade away.
Goldau
Roman Kaelin—Switzerland
Short Drama | 4:20 mins
Goldau reconstructs the 1806 Rossberg landslide with stunning realism, a visceral reminder of nature’s unforgiving power and its enduring mark on human lives. In 1806, the collapse of Mount Rossberg unleashed one of Switzerland’s most devastating natural disasters. After days of heavy rain, a massive landslide buried the village of Goldau within minutes, claiming 457 lives and reshaping the valley forever. Drawing on historical records and scientific research, this film reconstructs the catastrophic event with striking detail. More than a recounting of tragedy, it is a powerful reflection on the destructive force of nature and the lasting impact of disaster on human lives.
The Detectorists
Sarah-Jane Walsh-United Kingdom
Short Documentary | 5:59 mins
A young detection dog, Cariad, trains her senses to protect Wales’ elusive wildlife and find her place in the team. On the riverbanks of rural Wales, Cariad begins her journey to protect wildlife. Guided by her owner Lee and veteran sniffer dog Neo, she learns to track the faint signs of otters—an elusive and endangered species. Every scent trail is a test of instinct and perseverance. As Cariad struggles to prove herself, she discovers that finding her place in the conservation team means more than training, it’s about trust, resilience, and belonging.
Invisible Labor
Fan Ping/Yige Su—China
Short Documentary | 15:12 mins
A quiet but piercing look at the hidden labor behind every glass of milk, exposing the shared exploitation of cows and humans. Invisible Labor is a short documentary revealing the hidden processes of dairy production: from the forced pregnancies of cows to the harvesting of their milk, and the overlooked labor of factory workers. With a tender yet unflinching gaze, the film confronts questions of human entitlement and the shared exploitation between species, urging viewers to reconsider what lies behind everyday consumption and the ethical costs often concealed within it.
Parallel Botany
Magdalena Bermudez—United States
Short Experimental | 11:08 mins
Parallel Botany is a meditative study of plants where every cut reveals only another surface. Still lifes of real fruit merge with botanical illustrations of plant galls to reveal the paradox of dissection: each cut does not expose an inside but creates another surface. Through a hypnotic play of light, texture, and shifting planes, the film meditates on perception and the layered nature of reality. It invites viewers to reflect on how we look, how we divide, and how vision itself shapes our understanding of the three-dimensional world around us.
A Clawsome Tale
Lucie Machin—United Kingdom
Short Documentary | 21:43 mins
With playful narration and vivid underwater scenes, A Clawsome Tale @lucie.machin invites us to see its guardians anew. Narrated by Lowenna the lobster, this playful short documentary dives into the world of Cornwall’s National Lobster Hatchery. Blending humor and marine conservation, the film follows Lowenna from sea to hatchery and back again through her offspring’s release. Along the way, we meet fishermen and scientists devoted to protecting her species. With whimsical storytelling and stunning underwater imagery, the film redefines how we see lobsters while highlighting efforts to safeguard their fragile future.
Watchful
Ewa Górzna/Katarzyna Miron—Finland
Short Documentary | 13:30 mins
Watchful contemplates the fragile interplay between humans and the wild, where observer and observed dissolve into a shared gaze. Guided by silent animal protagonists, the film shifts perspective from human dominance to an animal-centered narrative. Merging documentary reality with layered soundscapes, it creates an immersive space of interspecies encounters. Evocative and sensory, this film questions how we perceive nature—inviting us to not only see but to listen, feel, and dwell within its hidden stories.
Tomorrow, the Burning Heavens
Max Bloching—Germany
Short Documentary | 22 mins
When a fiery sky lit up the Alps, ancestral visions of apocalypse collided with today’s climate reality. In 1560 AD, in the Alps, a rare meteorological phenomenon set the sky “on fire.” People feared the end of the world was near, and soon after, a cold spell struck, devastating the harvest. This story is interwoven with images depicting techniques of Alpine landscape management, creating a compelling dialogue between ancestral visions of apocalypse and today’s unfolding climate collapse.
Veils of Landscape
Chihiro Yamanaka—Japan
Short Animation | 5:10 mins
Veils of Landscape is an impressionistic meditation on nature’s quiet transformation. This is a poetic animated short that drifts between landscapes of blue, green, and yellow, merging mountains, water, and forest into a dreamlike flow. Built with delicate brushstrokes and accompanied by a gentle, rhythmic score, the film evokes the arrival of spring as both a visual painting and a lyrical meditation. Light on narrative but rich in atmosphere, it invites viewers into an immersive, impressionistic journey—a vibrant ode to nature’s beauty and the serenity it inspires.
Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari
Massimo D'Anolfi / Martina Parenti—Italy
Feature Documantary | 205 mins
Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari — an ambitious work that combines history, science, and visual poetry, awarded at IDFA for its excellence in directing. This both encyclopedic and essayistic film successively explores the worlds of animals, plants and minerals in three acts. In the first part, built around archive footage, scholars analyze the recording and classification of animals and their behavior, as well as the care of animals and experimenting on them, as different forms of appropriation—a method to determine a hierarchy, with human beings at the top. In the following acts, the film tilts and shifts this anthropocentric worldview. The second, poetically observational part, shot in the botanical gardens of Padua in Italy, argues that plants surpass and overshadow humans in almost every respect. The third act, which again has its own tone and documentary approach, reflects on the role that stones play in war and destruction, as well as in commemoration. This ambitious film does not consider animals, plants and minerals as elements from a world “around us”. Within the formalistic structure, a web of cross-connections is created in which humans are not the omniscient center. It's also the winner of the IDFA Award for Best Directing (Envision Competition). As the jury stated: “A tour de force of research and craft, the precision of its visual language, the tempo, the poetry, all speak of excellence in directing.”
Pet Farm—Finn Walther—Norway
Feature Documantary | 82 mins
In Norway’s frozen outback, one man risks everything for his foxes—and for a place to belong. Inspired by a 1970s Russian experiment on fox domestication, Joakim pursues his childhood dream of raising his own pack through selective breeding and careful training. What begins as a personal passion project soon faces an abrupt challenge when local authorities declare the farm illegal under wildlife law, threatening the animals he loves most. As the future of the foxes hangs in the balance, the film follows Joakim’s struggle and asks how far someone will go to protect what they cherish.
We Live Here
Zhanana Kurmasheva—Kazakhstan
Feature Documantary | 80 mins
Across Kazakhstan’s steppe, generations endure the silent shadow of a nuclear past. @zhanana_kurmasheva In the vast Kazakh steppe, once scarred by Soviet nuclear tests, three generations reflect on the haunting legacy that continues to shape their lives. Their memories reveal a constant tension between past and future, exposing how war, technology, and environmental destruction leave wounds that cannot heal. Moving between personal stories and historical echoes, the film explores humanity’s fragile bond with the land and asks what it means to live in the shadow of irreversible consequences.
Collective Monologue
Jessica Sarah Rinland—Argentina/UK
Feature Documantary | 105 mins
Collective Monologue shines a light on Argentina’s zoos in transition, revealing unseen labour and fragile human–animal bonds. Collective Monologue captures intimate, fragmented moments inside zoos and animal rescue centres across Argentina, where institutions once built for display now struggle to transform into spaces of care and conservation. Through the daily work of zookeeper and activist Maca, and the overlooked histories of these places, the film reveals lives devoted to animals often hidden in the shadows. Shot on 16mm and interwoven with archival materials and soundscapes, it becomes a meditation on memory, labour, captivity, and the fragile bonds between humans and animals.
Never Too Late
Rikki Choy—Hong Kong (China)
Feature Documantary | 80 mins
Four Hong Kongers turn to mountains and seas, questioning the possibility of renewing their bond with nature. In Hong Kong, the boundary between city, mountain, and ocean is blurred. Four Hong Kongers, who are strangers to one another, each facing their own life challenges, simultaneously choose to delve into nature in search of themselves. In the depths and peripheries of the city, amidst mountains, fields, the ocean, and shores, they explore their own connection to nature. Different questions converge onto a single issue, leading to a journey of reflection and redemption. If human development and the destruction of nature have become a reality, what else can we do? Is it too late to take action? This is their journey, and ours too, through the spirit of the mountains and oceans.
Once Upon a Time in a Forest
Virpi Suutari—Finland
Feature Documantary | 80 mins
In Finland’s forests and lakes, 22-year-old Ida leads a new Forest Movement, where the beauty of nature meets the urgency of protecting it. Once Upon a Time in a Forest unfolds as a modern fairy tale in the Finnish forest, where young people swim in clear lakes and find harmony among ancient trees. This balance is threatened as the forest faces man-made extinction. Moved by love for nature, 22-year-old Ida steps forward to lead the new Forest Movement, confronting powerful industry and generational bias. With breathtaking images, the film captures both the beauty of the landscape and the urgency of protecting it.
Baħar Biss (Just Sea)
Franziska Von Stenglin—Malta
Short Documantary | 25:42 mins
Just Sea reflects on environmental and personal loss in the life of a Maltese fisherman. Set against the towering cliffs of Gozo, Malta, Baħar Biss follows Punta, a fisherman lowering traditional traps into the Mediterranean while reflecting on the vanishing marine life he once knew. Beneath its quiet rhythm lies a meditation on loss—of environment, of family, of voice. Interwoven with the haunting verses of Maltese Ghana, the film captures both personal grief and ecological decline, offering a melancholic yet poetic portrait of resilience, memory, and the sea.
Archipelago of Earthen Bones - To Bunya
Malena Szlam—Canada
Short Documantary | 25:42 mins
Archipelago of Earthen Bones — To Bunya traces volcanic time as a way of sensing Earth’s layered histories. Filmed on 16mm with in-camera multiple exposures, Szlam captures ancient landforms from remnants of volcanic activity to the Gondwana Rainforest, illuminated by the afterglow of the Hunga-Tonga eruption. With a soundscape by Lawrence English, the film evokes shifting geologies from Mount Beerwah to the Bunya Mountains, immersing viewers in divergent temporalities that shape our environments.
Nube
Diego Alonso Sánchez de la Barquera Estrada/Christian Arredondo Narvaez—Mexico
Short Animation | 7:31 mins
Nube turns clouds and rain into a poetic meditation on love and fragility. This film tells a tender, imaginative story of a cloud and her daughter. After witnessing an old storm cloud release its final rain in sorrow, Noma, a gentle white cloud, realizes that Mixtli, her young dark daughter, is in danger of raining too soon. With expressive textures, colours, and movement, the animation conveys deep emotion without dialogue. Poetic and visually striking, it offers a heartfelt meditation on love, fragility, and the delicate cycle of life in nature’s sky.
Guardian of the Well
Bentley Brown/Tahir Ben/Mahamat Zene—Chad
Short Documentary | 5 mins
Guardian of the Well follows a herder in Chad’s Sahara as drought claims his cattle, turning the village well into both a lifeline and a symbol of survival. In Chad’s Sahara, a herder faces the harshest drought in memory. As the desert heat claims his cattle, he reflects on loss, survival, and the fragile balance between land and livelihood. Shot in the Batha Region, where filmmaker Bentley grew up, the film captures both devastation and resilience. More than a personal story, it’s a rare cinematic voice from Chad, offering a glimpse into a community confronting climate change at the edge of endurance.
Porcelain Perfect
Long Jing—China
Short Documentary | 6:11 mins
Porcelain Perfect observes the daily rhythm of Jingdezhen, where clay, fire, and human touch reveal a subtle collaboration between nature and craft. Filmed in the porcelain capital of Jingdezhen, Porcelain Perfect guides us through ordinary yet textured scenes: the bustle of the morning market, steam rising from fresh buns, the warmth of tea, and the glow of kilns. Told in the first person by a blue-and-white porcelain inheritor, the film reveals how clay demands waiting, how fire requires precision, and how craft thrives in patience. Against the speed of modern life, it reflects on the enduring dialogue between humans and matter, reminding us that only in balance can true forms emerge.
