Short Film Competition 3

10 year old Mahtab is the star of the boys soccer team. When they are recognised at the big match their eligibility to play for the team is questioned. Director Mahtab Pishghadam draws on her own childhood experiences in this tender portrayal of gender policing in sport.

Echo, a pigeon, searches the city and different environments within it for validation and affection, offering a prized tree branch that symbolizes his identity and personal values. After failing to attract any attention, he has to learn to transform to fit in with each group.

A talented pianist and his 8-year-old son struggle to find a place to sell vegetables at the biggest market in Moldova's 2000'. When the father seems to give up under the burden of his precarious existence, a gesture from his son brings new hope.

Woosung, a former personal assistant for persons with disabilities, visits the home of Jung-hyun, a former client of Woosung himself, for the first time in a long time. On his way to catch the bus, he finds a dead bird. Wanting to bury it, he carefully wraps it up to find a suitable place to bury it.

Based on the poetry cycle of the esteemed African-American poet Cornelius Eady, the film is inspired by the work of Phillis Wheatley, the first published black poet in the US. “Mercy” aims to weave Wheatley's poetry and imagery, which focuses on the complication of the slave learning their captor's language, with gesture, movement and voice into an intricate meditation on black womanhood.