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Atlantiques
Atlantiques (Mati Diop, 2009)

    Atlantiques

    Mati Diop, France, Senegal, 2009, 16’

    On the beach, gathered around a fire, a group of young Senegalese men discusses a possible attempt to cross the ocean to Spain. Mati Diop’s experimental documentary Atlantiques is a precursor but also a narrative sidestep to what would become her feature debut, Atlantics, ten years later. 

    The two men who speak up the most debate whether the dangerous journey is worth it. Can one find work in Europe? They discuss a previous, failed journey, as well as harsh economic realities and their spiritual beliefs. Diop contrasts the darkness that surrounds them with sometimes blinding light, emphasising the crux of the conflict between a bleak home and the allure of the unknown.

    Bio Mati Diop

    French-Senegalese actress and filmmaker Mati Diop (1982) directed the film Atlantics in 2019. It made her the first Black female director in contention for the Cannes Film Festival’s highest prize, the Palme d'Or. Instead, the film won the Grand Prix.

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    “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025

    02.02.2026

    As a collective love letter to the art of short-form moving image, yanco and Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, together with Talking Shorts, invited filmmakers, curators, critics, and scholars worldwide to participate in a first-ever poll of its kind. Invitees were asked to nominate ten audiovisual works under sixty minutes that they personally consider the “greatest” of all time. Through this non-academic approach to canon-building, this has led to an inspiring list of 105 titles.

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    453
    • This film was #37 in the “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025
      voted by Emily Wright, Andréa Picard, Elspeth Vischer, Delphine Jeanneret, Clara Helbig, Peter van Hoof, Jason Anderson
    documentary politics drama

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    Yarokamena

    Andrés Jurado, Colombia, Portugal, 2022, 21’

    In 20th-century Colombia, resistance fighter Yarokamena, a member of the indigenous Uitoto tribe, called for rebellion against violent exploitation of the rubber mining industry in the Amazone and invoked the spiritual powers of war.

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    Akaboum

    Manon Vila, France, 2019, 30’

    A portrait of contemporary suburban youth seeking to invent new contours of collective identity, against the backdrop of France in the throes of recession.

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    elephantfish

    Meltse Van Coillie, Belgium, 2018, 27’

    A ship drifts in the middle of an endless sea. Aboard is a crew of five. They all cope with boredom — some by trying to overpower it; others by escaping into a parallel world guided by dreams.

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    what else grows on the palm of your hand?

    Dhiaa Biya, Morocco, Belgium, 2023, 16’

    The routines of two women fuse together over time. One is busy with her bread, the other with her memories. Their similar gestures, repeated again and again, slowly unfold the special bond that unites them.

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    Before Then

    Mengzhu Xue, China, Germany, 2024, 30’

    Every form of communication involves deciphering codes. In Before Then, Mengzhu Xue attempts to confess a secret in the form of a letter in English, which she writes out phonetically in Chinese, and asks her grandmother to read out loud.

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    Waithood

    Louisiana Mees-Fongang, Belgium, 2019, 21’

    In Athens, five youngsters avoid waiting for an empty future by seeking entertainment in the luxurious Airbnb establishments that one of them is cleaning for a meagre fee.

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    Scum Mutation

    Ov, France, 2020, 10’

    In this cyberpunk animation, four creatures wobble like marionettes in a black void. An alien power tries to subdue them; police voices strike as if they were truncheons, but these vulnerable bodies start to fight back.

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    À l’usage des vivants

    Pauline Fonsny, Belgium, 2019, 27’

    In 1998, Semira Adamu, a 20-year-old Nigerian immigrant, died on Belgian soil of suffocation under a police pillow. Twenty years later, two women tell her story in a cry for justice. Through this film, they highlight the reality of detention centres: the harsh conditions of confinement, the suffering of detainees and the abuse by guards and police officers.

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