Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2025 – 6th Shortlist Announcement
We are excited to announce the 6th and final shortlist for the Academy Award-eligible categories—Live-Action Competition, Animation Competition, and Non-Fiction Competition—at the Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2025!
For our January shortlist, we received a diverse range of submissions, reflecting emerging trends and voices in the global short film industry. In total, we received 583 films this month.
Submission Statistics:
Genres: Drama remained the dominant genre, making up 68% of submissions. Comedy accounted for 6%, romance 5.5%, horror 3.5%, and family-oriented films 2.5%.
Film Length & Filmmaker Status: 9% of the submissions were under 5 minutes, 8% were first-time films, and 6% were student projects.
Gender Representation: This month saw a record number of submissions from women filmmakers, making up 45% of entries. While not yet at parity, this is a promising step toward a more balanced industry.
Age Representation: 22% of the filmmakers were under 30 years old.
Top Submitting Countries: Japan led with 106 submissions, followed by the United States (76) and China (46). We were also delighted to receive submissions from countries like Senegal.
This month’s submissions featured powerful storytelling themes, including films about the transformative power of music and narratives with deaf or hard of hearing protagonists, showcasing inclusive and diverse perspectives.
This marks the final shortlist announcement for this cycle. As we continue to review the shortlisted films, the official festival selections will be chosen from these outstanding entries. The final selection list to be published on our official website by the end of April 2025.
We thank all the filmmakers for their creativity, dedication, and passion for storytelling. Stay tuned for more updates as we approach the festival!
~SSFF & ASIA 2025 Short List vol.6 ~
~ The names of the shortlisted films, along with their directors and countries, will be listed in alphabetical order by category. ~
| Project Title | Directors | Country of Origin |
| ◎International | ||
| CANDY BAR | Nash Edgerton | AUSTRALIA |
| Echoes in Amber | Oliver Murray | UNITED KINGDOM |
| Five Star | Kai Hasson | UNITED STATES |
| LEES WAXUL | Yoro MBAYE | SENEGAL |
| Little Pains | Milda Baginskaite | UNITED KINGDOM/JAPAN |
| The Singers | Sam Davis | UNITED STATES |
| Su Twice | Agnese Làposi | SWITZERLAND |
| Theatre of Dreams | Fatma Al-Ghanim | QATAR |
| ◎Asia | ||
| The Burning Night | Demon Wong | CHINA |
| The Island | Jungho LEE | Korea, Republic of |
| Moti | Yash Saraf | INDIA |
| She is Guilty | Mr.Socket | CHINA |
| SUMMER TRIANGEL | Maryam Esmaeili, Ali Babai | IRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF |
| TRAP | Eunyoung OH | Korea, Republic of |
| Under The Whether | Putri Sarah Amelia | INDONESIA |
| Unspoken | Jaewook OH | Korea, Republic of |
| The Wanderers | Hae Jun MOON | Korea, Republic of |
| ◎Animation | ||
| FIRST LIGHT | Shunsuke Koyama | JAPAN |
| In Tune | Laura Kohler | SWITZERLAND |
| Ms.Understoned | Yuki Buma | JAPAN |
| My Organs Lying on the Ground | Shinobu Soejima | JAPAN |
| Someone special (một người đặc biệt) | Alice Gervat | FRANCE |
| Weeds | Pola Kazak | CZECH REPUBLIC |
| ◎Non Fiction | ||
| Goodnight, Mister Stalin | Benjamin Schildknecht Kodboel | UNITED KINGDOM |
| The Last Observers | Maja K Mikkelsen | UNITED STATES |
| Pretty For Her Age | Dani Sahar | ISRAEL |
| village restaurant | Yuji Morita | JAPAN |
| ◎Japan | ||
| I’m going | Takumi Koike | JAPAN |
| She walks backwards | Shota Kasumi | JAPAN |
| The Shore of Empathy | Taichi Ishikawa | JAPAN |
| Tea Time | Kohei Hirota | JAPAN |
| Children of Memory | Koichi Yamashina | JAPAN |
| CHRONOGRAPH | Yuto Obara | JAPAN |
| A Walk With You | Saori Kouzuki | JAPAN |
| High Hair Lady | Kazuya Miyata | JAPAN |
| Poison and Music | Tomoichiro Setsuda | JAPAN |
| HUMAN FARM | Gentoku Yamada | JAPAN |
| NOVA | Yuma Terada | JAPAN |
| Honolulu | Tomomi Muraguchi | JAPAN |
| Masumi’s Sky | Koutarou Sakai | JAPAN |
| Retake | Eisuke Ohga | JAPAN |