Daniel Mattes

Daniel Mattes is a California-born producer based in Phnom Penh and a partner at the Cambodian production company Anti-Archive. He most recently produced Polen Ly’s debut feature, Becoming Human (2025), and the short film, Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites (2025).

Daniel Mattes participated in “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025, a first-ever poll of its kind as a collective love letter to the art of short-form moving image. yanco and Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, in collaboration with Talking Shorts, invited filmmakers, curators, distributors, critics, and scholars worldwide to nominate 10 audiovisual works under sixty minutes that they personally consider the “greatest” of all time. This was Daniel Mattes’s submission:

Movie Original Title Director Country Year Duration
Emerald Morakot Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand 2007 11’

Short films can be life-changing!

Mobile Men Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand 2008 4’

My favorite short film of all time, bar none.

Letters from Panduranga 来自宾童龙的信 Nguyen Trinh Thi Vietnam 2015 35’
Blessed Blessed Oblivion Jumana Manna Palestine 2010 21’
Mud Man 土の人 Chikako Yamashiro Japan 2016 23’
Scorpio Rising Kenneth Anger USA 1964 27’
Partie de campagne A Day in the Country Jean Renoir France 1946 41’
Nuit et brouillard Night and Fog Alain Resnais France 1955 32’
The Big Shave Martin Scorsese USA 1967 6’
La Ricotta Pier Paolo Pasolini Italy 1963 34’