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The competition programmes feel the pulse of current global filmmaking, transforming the city into an international short film hub for six days. The best works from all competition categories will be honoured with prizes at the Award Ceremony on Sunday.
Here we present the latest national short films. Once again, the Swiss selection includes numerous premieres, offering plenty of room for discoveries. Join us on Sunday at the Award Ceremony to witness how the jury awards various prizes to the best films of this year’s festival edition.
With the Sparks programmes, we hope to spark a passion for the medium of short film. Featuring highlights from this year’s submissions, Sparks I & II are competition programmes that represent a broad range of current filmmaking. The selection is meant to appeal to multigenerational audiences and inspire discussion. Showcasing a diverse film culture beyond the mainstream and YouTube clips, the programmes offer an ideal introduction to the world of shorts. At the Award Ceremony on Sunday, the youth jury will award the prize for the best film from the Sparks section.
Kurzfilmtage’s annual Swiss Film School Day is a showcase of Switzerland’s six undergraduate degree programmes. Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL), the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD), the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), the Lucerne School of Design, Film and Art – Video/Animation, and the International Academy of Audiovisual Sciences (CISA) present a selection of their recent short films in three sessions followed by film talks led by Filmexplorer. Admission to the Swiss Film School Day is free – a great opportunity to get a first glimpse of Kurzfilmtage!
Iran has been shaped by profound political and social changes, that have had a lasting impact on both domestic and diasporic filmmaking. The Focus: Shifting Grounds – Framing Iran takes this as an occasion to sharpen our awareness of the complexity of a cinema that defies simple explanations. Six programmes bring together historical and contemporary works created in Iran and the diaspora. These range from the imagery of oil to questions of identity and self-determination outside social norms, from myth and reality to diverse forms of resistance and works of the independent film movement Cinema-ye Azad of the 1970s. The films combine documentary, fictional and experimental forms. The focus is not on the country itself, but on how Iran is seen, narrated, and imagined – and how cinema can keep reframing these images.
Some films tell stories, while others tell us about cinema itself. To mark the 30th anniversary of Kurzfilmtage, this Focus is dedicated to the medium itself. Across three programmes, these short films explore filmmaking, its emotional power, and ways of thinking in images. This is our love letter to film and to all it entails – the magic of making, feeling, and thinking cinema. For the Love of Cinema.
What if the future is already here? Gala Hernández López explores the strange worlds where technology, money, and desire meet – from incels and crypto dreams to cryonics, self-optimization, and the possibility of controlling our dreams. Moving between documentary and science fiction, her films reveal how digital fantasies become real desires, markets, and infrastructures, asking whether we still dream of the future, or whether our systems have begun to dream for us.
This section showcases recent short films from Zurich, Switzerland, and around the world screened out of competition. For short film buffs who are unafraid of strange or profound works with cult potential – discover some rare finds from our treasure chest!
This section presents programmes on topics that our curators are passionate about or that are simply fun. From historical works calling for social cohesion or exploring how we deal with memory to perspectives on femininity and shorts that let us experience moments of cringe: there’s a lot to discover in our Special Programmes.
Stories for children aged 6+ kindle curiosity, empathy, and creativity, eliciting a sense of wonder. And our selection of serious, amusing, and exciting shorts for kids aged 9+ inspires discussion, offering families a great introduction to the universe of short films. In collaboration with the Magic Lantern, Kurzfilmtage offers a unique filmgoing experience for young viewers and their families.
Whether with our festive Opening, a moving Award Ceremony, or the Best of programmes on Sunday – we open and close Kurzfilmtage in style. Together with filmmakers, audiences, and partners, we celebrate the art of short film, showing that shorts are made for the big screen.
From the cinema to the dance floor: Kurzfilmtage invites you to shake a leg to live bands and DJs. Concerts and parties – including our legendary closing party – round off the festival experience. Kraftfeld has once again compiled a delicious programme for night owls. Come, listen, dance!
Kurzfilmtage’s Industry Events consist of the Swiss Film School Day, the Industry Lab, and the Creators’ Room. They offer film professionals an opportunity for networking and for discussing current issues, creative methods, and aesthetic trends.
What happens when dreams of the future become part of the present? «For Here Am I Sitting in a Tin Can Far above the World» and «Like Moths to Light» explore cryonics, cryptocurrencies, and technologies that promise to control our dreams. From these speculative visions the programme moves into a live performance connected to Hernández López’s new project «The Possibility of an Island», extending the journey from screen to stage, moving between science fiction, technological promise, and capitalist desire.
What strange relationship do we have with the future? A woman dreams of the American cryptographer Hal Finney, a major economic crisis affects the cryptocurrency market, and tens of thousands of people are cryogenized awaiting better times. Are they suspended, or are they falling into the void?
Like Moths to Light Gala Hernández López / Spain/France/Italy 2026 / 26'28" / DCP / colour / English / Exp/Doc/Fic
A woman talks to us from inside a machine that records her brain activity. She describes a mental labyrinth combining an old amusement park called Dreamland, 19th-century dream photographs, contemporary experiments in mental decoding with AI, and Prophetic, a start-up whose goal is to control dreams. But what do our dreams see when they look back at us? «Like Moths to Light» is a meditation on the future of our dream worlds in the age of neurocapitalism.
In this live performance, filmmaker Gala Hernández López will share and comment on her research and footage from her forthcoming film «The Possibility of an Island», shot on Margarita Island, Venezuela. She will present her ongoing investigation into CryptoCity, an initiative proposing the development of a privately organized and highly autonomous city on the island, primarily addressed to Germans disillusioned with the European project, structured in part through a DAO — a decentralized autonomous organization — and aimed at a community interested in alternative models of governance and social organization. Moving between documentary inquiry and speculative imaginaries, the films presented in this session explore the ways in which ideas that have long circulated through fiction, technological speculation, and political theory can take material form. The research follows the emergence of concrete infrastructures, organizations, financial systems, and new experiments in governance around such ideas. From cryonics to dream engineering and privately governed «free cities», the session examines how projects once associated with speculative futures are increasingly becoming part of contemporary technological, economic, and political realities.
What if the future has already begun – not as an event, but as an idea that shapes the way we act? Gala Hernández López is interested in stories, fantasies, and promises that circulate in digital spaces and increasingly feed back into the material world. In her films, cryptocurrencies, incels, self-optimization, cryonics, or the technological control of our dreams may initially appear like extensions of science fiction. Yet their real uncanniness lies in the fact that they are already part of our present – things we built while we were still dreaming of them.
Hernández López explores how data, algorithms, and digital platforms increasingly shape our desires, fears, and ideas of success. Algorithms, data streams, and financial markets are not abstract systems existing outside the individual. They structure desires and fears, as well as ideas of success, love, the body, and the future. The filmmaker describes the narratives emerging in online communities as shared or symptomatic fictions: stories that reveal something about the state of our society while simultaneously beginning to produce reality.
These issues run through all four of her films: In « La Mécanique des fluides», the search for an incel leads deep into the lonely and misogynistic spaces of the internet. «For Here Am I Sitting in a Tin Can Far above the World», which premiered at Berlinale Forum Expanded in 2024, connects cryptocurrencies and cryonics in a world where even the future becomes an economic resource. In «+10k», which premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2025, a 21-year-old dreams of financial independence, Miami, and a monthly income of more than €10 000 – desires increasingly translated into metrics, rankings, and calculated desires. «Like Moths to Light», which premiered in the Tiger Shorts Competition in Rotterdam in 2026, addresses the technological control of dreaming and thus one of the last unexplored territories of the self. The films have also been shown at DOK Leipzig, IDFA, Clermont Ferrand, Cinéma du Réel, IndieLisboa, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, the Berlinische Galerie, C/O Berlin, and the Palais de Tokyo.
Gala Hernández López deliberately moves between documentary, essay film, installation, and speculative fiction. YouTube videos, screenshots, archival material, 3D images, and her own footage are removed from their original contexts and recombined. The internet is not merely a subject of her work, but also its material and its setting. Her films ask how fantasies become material infrastructures, desires influence financial markets, and visions of the future shape the present. Are we still dreaming of the future – or have the systems we live in already begun to dream for us?
John Canciani & Gala Hernández López
The Material Life of Fictions
What happens when fantasies about the future begin to shape the present? In « For Here Am I Sitting in a Tin Can Far above the World», cryptocurrencies and cryonics merge into a speculative world where the future itself becomes an economic resource. «Like Moths to Light» moves further inward, exploring attempts to decode, visualize, and ultimately control our dreams through technology. Together, the films trace a strange territory between hope and anxiety, science fiction and documentary, technological promise and capitalist desire. A screen-based performance connected to Hernández López’s new film «The Possibility of an Island» (to be released in 2027) extends these questions beyond the linear montage of film. What we build while dreaming may no longer belong to an imagined future: it is already becoming part of the world we live in.
Les Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur représentent le plus important festival de courts métrages en Suisse. Chaque mois de novembre, Winterthour se transforme en métropole du court métrage pendant six jours.
Le programme des 30ᵉ Kurzfilmtage sera annoncé le 14 octobre 2026.
Des courts métrages actuels du monde entier. Les œuvres les plus prometteuses seront récompensées le dimanche soir.
Hors Concours
Des courts métrages actuels zurichois, suisses et internationaux diffusés en dehors de nos compétitions.
Focus
Une analyse en images d’une région, d’un phénomène social ou d’une tendance artistique.
Focus sur une personne
L’œuvre d’un·e cinéaste est mise sur le devant de la scène.
Programmes spéciaux
Des programmes de courts métrages sur des thématiques brûlantes, ou simplement divertissantes.
Programmes familiaux
Des courts métrages pour les jeunes dès 6 ans et toute la famille.
Expanded Cinema
Des installations, des performances et des expositions qui font découvrir au public des formes de cinéma inhabituelles.
Programme d’événements
Des concerts, des soirées, des lectures et de nombreux autres événements qui complètent l’expérience du festival.
Discussions et podiums
Des discussions et des tables rondes animées durant lesquelles l'art du cinéma ou des thématiques précises sont approfondis.
Industry Events
Un large éventail d’événements d’information, de formation et de réseautage.
Le court métrage
Le court métrage n’est pas juste un film «court». C’est une forme d’art à part entière à laquelle nous consacrons chaque année un festival.
Il existe des courts métrages de tous genres et de toutes longueurs. Grâce à des voies de production facilitées, il permet de capter rapidement une époque et de l’illustrer. Il divertit, surprend, analyse lasociété, exprime une opinion politique ou donne un aperçu de mondes étrangers.
Nous rassemblons nos courts métrages pour créer des programmes thématiques ou des sections – comme nos compétitions – et nous les projetons dans un ordre bien précis. Pour apprécier le court métrage, il suffit d’être curieux, d’avoir envie de faire des découvertes et de se laisser surprendre.