The selection committee – film curator and script consultant Chantal Lian (France) and film journalist Nanako Tsukidate (Japan) – and committee consultants – directors Vytautas Katkus (Lithuania) and Qiu Yang (China) – screened more than 2400 applications to select 30 works, multifaceted in their form, themes, and textures, as participants in the Short Film International and National Competition. The films and this year’s thematic concept are introduced by the French film critic and longtime RIGA IFF Short Film Competition curator Léo Soesanto:

“We choose our films carefully, so it was easy to make this logical leap: what if our films this year were about “care”? We must remember, more than ever, that films connect us not only with the world but also with each other, and that it is natural they remind us to take care of others, of ourselves, and of our environment.

Hence, in the international competition: films on mental health, ecology, or war. And we also take care of our filmmakers, seeking to psychoanalyse them in the “Why do you film?” programme. All in all, our big question in 2025 is the title of one of our screenings: “Are you OK?”.

In the National Competition, it’s a feast of animation, athletic single takes, folk music, surreal images, and weird rhythms: Latvian filmmakers are better than OK. They compete in invention, infusing a little more poetry than usual into their films – the best response to offer in these difficult times.”

The section will open with the screening of the RIGA IFF Short Film National Competition. The 100-minute-long celebration of Latvian cinema will unite the film crews, festival guests, and audiences on 22 October at 18:30 in the cinema Splendid Palace Large Hall, followed by conversations with the filmmakers. By offering cinematic poetics as a reaction to chaos and the unavoidable drudgery of life, in six films from local filmmakers, the quotidien reality will be revealed from new points of view, in fresh colours, and unusual rhythms.

In the competition screening, the national premieres will be celebrated by four short films – Cave Man (dir. Mercedes Margoit, Imants Daksis), The Observer (dir. Arnis Kalniņš), Big Loop Small Loop (dir. Žanete Skarule, Tomas Vengris), and Cleanliness (dir. Andrejs Brīvulis). The latter had its world premiere in the animation mecca, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June. In the running for the competition main award and the radio SWH audience award will also be two short films nominated for the Latvian national film award Lielais Kristaps – Where Does the Sun Sleep at Night? (dir. Ildze Felsberga) and Centre of The Spiral (dir. Dāvis Gauja).

On the evening of 23 and 24 October, in four thematic screenings and in the presence of the filmmakers, 24 RIGA IFF Short Film International Competition works will be screened in the DELFI LUX auditorium of Forum Cinemas. Competition selections Existential Threats, Construction Time Again, Why Do You Film?, and Are You Ok? will show why we need to lend a helping hand, and how, with the help of a camera, one can tell the truth and lies, and will also reveal spiritual adventures in time and the strength to survive the threats to our existence around us.

Among the contestants are works of fiction, documentary, and experimental cinema, as well as flamboyant animations from the United States, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Myanmar, and almost all of Europe. 8 different kinds of premieres will be celebrated during RIGA IFF, among them six for short films – Drifting, South (Nan Fang Pian Nan), Easter Day (Пасхальний день), Ice Burns Like Fire (El Hielo Quema Tanto Como El Fuego), Nonexistent, Like a Flash, and tiny film about rape – will see their world premiere. After the screenings, the audience will be invited to participate in conversations with the attending filmmakers.