The Athens Short Film Festival returns from December 11 to 14 at the historic Elli Cinema, bringing 45 short films from 22 countries to the big screen.
This year’s edition dives deep into the complexities of contemporary life—racism and homophobia, friendship and alienation, desire and sexuality, gender identities and social roles.
The program unfolds across seven thematic strands, each shining a light on a different facet of the human experience.
Is Memory All Fiction?
How many of our memories are actually real, how many have been constructed, and how many are repressed in order to protect us from past traumas? The theme Is Memory all Fiction? places the notion of memory under the microscope, while also examining how film as a medium can redefine it.
Shorts Mixtape: BFFs
“Lizzie in the Sky with Diamonds”
Friendships that begin, end, or are tested. A path we are all familiar with. Stories of friends of different nationalities, ages, and genders unfold through comedies, dramas, and coming-of-age short films. All different from one another, they each explain in their own way what BFFs really means.
Sticks and Stones Won’t Break My Bones
Six stories, multiple characters, various forms of oppression, and the protagonists’ response to them. ‘Sticks and Stones Won’t Break My Bones,’ they tell us in different ways, fighting against homophobia, racism, misogyny, and authoritarian behaviors with whatever means each one has.
Still frame from the short “The Birth of a Bitch”.
Shorts Mixtape: NSFW
From New York’s queer sex-party scene to Greek illustrator Stavros Kioutsoukis’ erotic comic strips and the sexual fantasies of people of all ages, genders, and sexual orientations. Sexual exploration and sexuality today, seen through the eyes of 7 filmmakers from different countries and backgrounds.
Familiar Strangers
Moments of everyday life, the harmonious—or not—coexistence with others, and the people next door, seen through fictional stories and real-life narratives. Become part of these microcosms, like an invisible observer, and discover their characters through their interactions with each other.
Still frame from the short “Family Sunday”.
Shorts Mixtape: WTF
Realistic notions and personalities with a dash of surrealism that lets you make your own conclusions. Vampires, digital creatures, personal paranoias, and nightmares take various forms in these 7 short films that move between sci-fi, experimental, or are just quirky.
Please Mind the Gap
How do we experience distance in our personal relationships, as well as collective alienation today? Can we bridge the gap that forms within families, romantic relationships, among people and places, and between us and ourselves? Please Mind the Gap, if you try.
For the festival’s full program, click here.
Tickets can be purchased here.
About the Festival
The Athens Short Film Festival is an annual platform dedicated to international independent shorts and emerging filmmakers. Held in the artistic, multicultural fabric of Athens, ASFF embraces the city’s underground pulse and brings together a mixed audience of locals and visitors.
