The best shorts from Latvia and all over the world in five different screenings on 22, 23, and 24 October will unite the audiences and the jury in the Short Film Competition at Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF, 16–26 October). 30 carefully selected works will be screened in the presence of the filmmakers in the Large Hall of the festival’s main venue, cinema Splendid Palace, and in the DELFI LUX auditorium of Forum Cinemas. Tickets to the screenings are available on the festival website, rigaiff.lv or at Biļešu serviss sales points.

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 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.

The films will be judged and festival awards, including the candidacy for the prestigious European Film Academy Award Best Short Film 2026 – Prix Vimeo, bestowed by a jury of film industry professionals. The jury members this year will be the Slovenian curator, Animateka main competition programmer, and the managing director at CEE Animation Workshop, Saša Bach; the Somali-Austrian filmmaker Mo Harawe, whose debut feature Le Village aux Portes du Daradis (2024) was screened at Cannes Un Certain Regard competition last year; and Sarah Schlüssel, film curator, programmer, as well as Berlinale Short Film section and Berlinale Talents Lab selection committee member from Germany. 

Tickets to the Short Film Competition screenings are available on the festival website, rigaiff.lv or at Biļešu serviss sales points. Also available are festival passes – a shortcut to all RIGA IFF programme screenings in the cinemas of Riga.

Until the full festival line-up announcement in September, RIGA IFF will continue to reveal other significant and highly artistic works of this year’s programme and announce their ticket sales. Films awarded at Rotterdam, Berlin, Cannes, Venice, and other film festivals, as well as bold hidden gems of contemporary cinema will unite both local audiences and international guests over 11 days in October at the festival’s main venue, cinema Splendid Palace, as well as Forum Cinemas, cinema K.Suns, and the National Library of Latvia. Festival updates are published on rigaiff.lv and RIGA IFF social media accounts.

RIGA IFF is made possible with the support of the State Culture Capital Foundation, the EU programme “Creative Europe – MEDIA”, Riga City Council, the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, the National Film Centre of Latvia, and the Investment and Tourism Agency of Riga. RIGA IFF Short Film Competition is supported by the European Film Academy, Austrian Embassy, and radio SWH.