Chasing Ghosts

Lucas Simons, an 11-year-old filmmaker, is obsessed with death after the loss of his brother. When Lucas accidentally captures a mysterious presence in one of his films, he inadvertently becomes a YouTube phenomenon, and must learn to live life in the spotlight while also learning how to once again start living life to its fullest.

The Match

A son and his father face each other in silence, letting chess say what was never said.

Le altre vite

Thanks to a new technology, a state center makes it possible to interact with a deceased person. Diego oversees the encounters betwen the dead and the living.

Ikiru

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Sword in 21st Century

Casting a sword with one's bare hands may sound like a crazy idea to many in the high-tech, digital 21st Century, but not to Fung, a stock broker, who welcomes the assigned task that bears special meaning. When Fung is bequeathed a tattered notebook by his father Lang on his deathbed, his life is turned upside down. Tasked with a heavy undertaking, Fung has to think and look out of the box before rolling up his sleeves to forge the sword. Through the tedious process of annealing and tempering, grinding and cutting, he begins to contemplate the meaning of casting a sword, and of the elusive father and son relationship.

Cieli Rossi

Putty Hill

Friends and family of Cory, a young man who has died of an overdose, gather at a Baltimore-area karaoke bar for his wake and compare stories about him. Gradually, as it becomes clear that there are many holes in their recollections about Cory, they fill in the blanks by talking about things that reveal aspects of their own lives. Among those mourning him and searching for meaning are his cousin Jenny, his sister Zoe and his brother James.

Please, Don’t Cry

A professional mourner goes to what seems just another job when she begins to suspect that the deceased might be tied to her forgotten past.

Haya Kang Balbal

Under pressure to sell their land to a contractor, Ramon seeks his wife’s counsel, and a devastating truth begins to unravel.

Avance et tu verras

The sun rises over the dark, misty forest. It's springtime. Nature is lush. A man in his fifties walks warily along a hiking trail cut through tall ferns. He's not walking alone; something invisible is connected to him.

Uasheshkun

A father tries to save the soul of his daughter, lost in darkness.

Cheesy Mourning

Created as part of a 48-hour film challenge, this tender and lightly comedic short follows recently widowed Dad Eli as he navigates the chaos of a single morning with his spirited 11-year-old daughter, Naomi. What begins as a struggle over burnt grilled cheese turns into a quiet, heartfelt moment of connection, love, and resilience. Naomi’s wisdom, humor, and old-soul insight help her father navigate grief, reminding us that even in loss, love—and laughter—can still find a way. A story about family, imperfection, and the small moments that make life meaningful. "This film made as part of 48 Hours California and the Sacramento International Film Festival ©2025." #ShortFilm #48HourFilmChallenge #Family #Grief #ComedyDrama #FatherDaughter #Heartfelt #MinimalistFilm #BurntGrilledCheese #LoveAndLoss #EmotionalShort #CheesyMourning

Chapel of Rest

Chapel of Rest is a dramatic comedy in which two young brothers are introduced to the ceremony of death while attending their grandfather's wake. When curiosity gets the better of them, the boys sneak into the chapel to see the body--but their fascination quickly gives way to mischief.

My Best Friend

Two long lost friends meet at the wake of their estranged friend's funeral

The Gathered

After her beloved aunt dies, young girl Lily (Polly Dartford) finds herself clashing with the insensitive guests gathered at the wake.

Ole

Coping with his father's death, Ole takes himself into a vivid daydreaming moment, where he can finally forgive his father.

Mom's Secret

After the sudden death of her mother, 13-year-old Yara struggles to find her place in a world that no longer feels familiar. Hoping for comfort, she returns with her father to the campsite where their family once spent every summer. But things have changed — their beloved caravan has been sold, and her father seems unwilling to face the grief they share. One night, Yara hears mysterious music coming from the direction of her old caravan. Together with her best friend Deon, she sets out to uncover its source. What begins as a haunting mystery slowly transforms into a tender journey of memory, love, and acceptance.

Luto

Damian, grieving his girlfriend's death, travels through Mexico seeking solace. Along the way, he connects with strangers and witnesses their coping rituals, finding a path through his own memories and regrets.

Death of Logic

On a voyage into the dark, we follow a man portraying an intens dialogue with the subconscious. A vignette into the process of looking inward, evaporates the ego and listens to what wants to be heard, on the road to letting go. A requiem for the death of the self.

What Stays

On a beach, a man shares a peaceful moment with his father, somewhere between memory and imagination.

Flashbacks of a Fool

An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970s Britain.

The Safety of Objects

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

Black or White

A grieving widower is drawn into a custody battle over his granddaughter, whom he helped raise her entire life.

Goodbye June

Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.

Hereafter

Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.

The Truth About Emanuel

A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.

A Dry White Season

During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.

Rabbit Hole

Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.

Strange Weather

Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.

A Question of Faith

When Tragedy Strikes three Families, their Destiny forces them on a coverging path and mercy as the challenges of their fate could also resurrect their beliefs

The Trials of Cate McCall

In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.

Cake

After having visions of a member of her support group who killed herself, a woman who also suffers with chronic pain seeks out the widower of the suicide.

Hands of Stone

The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.

Personal Effects

Walter is a rising star in the NCAA wrestling world until his life is ripped apart by the brutal murder of his sister. Returning home to console his mother Gloria he seeks vengeance on the man who is accused of the crime. A chance meeting with a beautiful mature woman gives him solace to the situation. Will this unlikely pairing bloom into a romance and heal a wound the world cannot see or will the loss of his sister push him over the edge?

Reservation Road

Two fathers' lives intersect when one of them is involved in a terrible and sudden hit-and-run car accident that leaves the other's son dead. In response, the two men react in unexpected ways as a reckoning looms in the near future.

Come Sunday

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

90 Minutes in Heaven

A man involved in a horrific car crash is pronounced dead, only to come back to life an hour and a half later, claiming to have seen Heaven.

Horns

In the aftermath of his girlfriend's mysterious death, a young man awakens to strange horns sprouting from his temples.

Mr. Church

A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.

Beast

MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal champion Xavier Grau.