Samizdat 2025 Short Film Competition, Block 1

UK premieres

Wheelchair accessible | English subtitles | Pay-what-you-can tickets (£2–12)

If the ticket or other costs, such as childcare or transport, make this screening unaffordable, please see details of our .

Following last year’s Audience Award for Alex Milic’s Consul of Nowhereland (Montenegro), this year’s competition brings 14 new titles — from Poland and Iran to Uzbekistan and Greece. Once again, you — our audience! — will vote for the winner.

Our first block moves between sharp, playful storytelling and intimate testimonies, bridging the gap between the personal and the political. A young girl carries her uprooted home in her sleeve, a mother and daughter confront the scars of patriarchal society together, a remote train station becomes the stage for an absurdist play. Together, these films form a choir of voices in search of belonging in the face of displacement, oppression and exclusion.

Content notes: war, blood, dead body, discussion of transphobia and homophobia, state oppression, trauma and grief, discussion of sexualised violence, depiction of ableism

Access notes: loud noises and music, flickering lights

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Bunny Decides to Go (Dovşan getmək qərarına gəlir) by Vusala Hajiyeva, Azerbaijan, 2022

Autokar by Sylwia Szkiłądź, Belgium/France, 2025

Three Women Named Svetlana (Tri žene po imenu Svetlana) by Natalia Boorsma, Serbia/Netherlands, 2024

Nudity (Nagota) by Sabina Bakaeva, Uzbekistan/France, 2025

Us, The Sea and The Sad End by Małgorzata Rybak, Poland, 2023

Rock Berkut by Tamerlan Almanov, Qazaqstan*, 2025

Cleaner by Kostas Gerampinis, Greece, 2024

Host or Publisher Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival