June 3–6, 2025 | Sofia, Bulgaria

The FilmEU alliance is proud to present the first edition of the FilmEU Film Festival, which will take place from 3 to 6 June 2025 in Sofia, Bulgaria. This new initiative reflects FilmEU’s mission to support emerging creative talent across Europe by fostering transnational collaboration, innovation in education, and artistic excellence in film and media.

Organised as part of the FilmEU Summit 2025, the festival offers a curated selection of short films produced by students and recent graduates from the eight FilmEU partner institutions, as well as from European joint master’s programmes such as DocNomads and RE:ANIMA. The programme spans fiction, documentary, animation, and experimental work, addressing themes such as memory, identity, belonging, and transformation. The selected films exemplify the alliance’s shared values of creativity, diversity, sustainability, openness, and collaboration, while highlighting the bold perspectives and narrative innovation of a new generation of European filmmakers.

The selection committee for the festival was composed of students and faculty members from each FilmEU partner institution, ensuring a broad and inclusive perspective on excellence and innovation in student filmmaking. All selected films will compete for awards presented by an international jury, alongside an Audience Award determined by viewers, celebrating both critical acclaim and public appreciation of emerging European talent.

PROGRAMME 1: Memory is a Place

Theme: Nostalgia, memory, and emotional heritage - how we remember, misremember, and carry others with us.
Total Duration: 52 min

A Sea to Remember / Pohádka o cestě k moři · dir. Radek Ševčík · 10:00 · Documentary · Slovakia
A grandson reimagines his grandmother's dementia through Indian mythology and VR. Memory is both refuge and fiction.

All Those Memories I Can’t Remember · dir. Nikolaj Schou · 04:35 · Experimental · Denmark
A quiet meditation on trying to remember someone you loved — and what’s lost in the gaps.

Retro: Start · 02:25 · dir. Natascha Booth · Animation · Ireland
A girl’s childhood bond with a video game character echoes in her adult life — digital nostalgia, pixelated and pure.

A Day When the Snow Melts · dir. Hajar Mehrani · 06:45 · Animation · RE:ANIMA · Portugal, Belgium, Finland, Iran
A folktale becomes a healing spell. A granddaughter faces her childhood fear with her grandmother’s voice guiding her.

Garlic Soup / Чеснова Супа · dir. Kristian Zahariev · 08:30 · Animation · Bulgaria
A vampire is mistaken for a beloved grandmother. Horror becomes comedy, and memory becomes confusion — or connection.

This Peculiar Day / Tento divný deň · dir. Emília Ondriašová · 19:00 · Fiction · Slovakia
A dark comedy about midlife regret and the ghosts of what could’ve been.

Screenings: 03.06.2025, 19:00 (hall 6, NDK, official opening) and 06.06.2025, 14:30 (Cinema Odeon)

PROGRAMME 2: Threads of Us

Theme: Community, belonging, and identity — found, challenged, and reimagined.
Total Duration: 72 min

1. Under The Skins / Под Кожите · dir. Petar Penev · 24:10 · Documentary · Bulgaria
Dimitar preserves the Kukeri ritual in a modern world that has little room for it. A quiet fight for identity.

2. Come Sit With Us / Ära ole uhke · dir. Elis Rumma ·14:06 · Fiction · Estonia
A young outsider is gently welcomed into a village circle. Belonging arrives in silence and side-glances.

3. A Rosa Nasce Nas Pedras / A Rosa Nasce Nas Pedras · dir. Sebastian Molina Ruiz · 12:00 · Documentary · Portugal
A poetic resistance to xenophobia in Lisbon. “Home” is claimed, even when denied.

4. Twig · dir. Liese Minjauw · 03:49 · Animation · Belgium
A crooked twig goes to extreme lengths to try to fit in with the straight beams of wood, but the price to fit in is high.

5. Mother of Dawn / Mãe da Manhã · dir. Clara Trevisan · 08:09 · Animation · RE ANIMA · Portugal, Belgium, Finland, Brazil
A mythic creature forages and nurtures in a looping night. An ode to the quiet ritual of caregiving.

6. Lights, Haze / გაბნეული შუქები · dir. Tata Managadze · 08:04 · Experimental Animation · RE ANIMA · Belgium, Finland, Georgia, Portugal
A liminal dreamscape where personal and collective memory blur. Belonging may lie in reinvention.

Screening: 04.06.2025, 19:00 (Cinema Odeon)

PROGRAMME 3: Fragile Worlds

Theme: Childhood and family life seen through delicate, surreal, and intimate moments - where care, rivalry, and imagination shape how we grow and survive.
Total Duration: 60 min

1. A Mother Goes to the Beach / Uma Mãe Vai à Praia · dir. Pedro Hasrouny · 15:30 · Fiction · Portugal
A family beach day cracks under comparison and quiet rivalry. Motherhood, judged and juggled.

2. Good Luck, Have Fun · dir. Sebastian Thinggaard · 20:33 · Fiction · Denmark
A teen aspires to digital fame, but his sick mother grounds him in a reality of care, love, and limits.

3. Till Tomorrow / Tak Zajtra · dir. Hannah Dale · 17:00 · Fiction · Slovakia
Two brothers survive a tense day at home, where hope flickers like sunlight through drawn curtains.

4. Potlems · dir. Alberto Allegri Rodriguez · 04:16 · Animation · Denmark
In a fragile world of porcelain children, difference must be hidden — or embraced.

5. Na Výchyr · dir. Samuel Púchovský · 02:54 · Animation · Slovakia
A whimsical fable of a magpie and her treasures. A reflection on value, vanity, and stormy consequences.

Screening: 05.06.2025, 18:30 (Cinema Odeon)