This year, QCShorts International, part of the QCinema International Film Festival (QCIFF), expands on the festival’s 2025 theme, “Film City,” with an ambitious lineup of 33 films from 21 countries. Curated into six thematic programs, the selection spans experimental cinema, animation, documentary, and fiction, highlighting the short film as a powerful space for artistic and social exploration.
“The expansion of QCinema’s short film program reflects our commitment to using short films as a platform for experimentation and storytelling,” says programmer and film critic Jason Tan Liwag. “It also honors how shorts engage with larger global conversations, especially within the city as a canvas for film.”
Competition Programs
The festival features a competition section with six local shorts funded by QCinema, competing alongside fifteen Southeast Asian films across four programs.
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Program 1: “This Vast Artifice” opens the festival with five Southeast Asian films exploring the fragility and illusions of urban life. From the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, the shorts trace innocence, dreams, and desires against the backdrop of modern cities. Titles include As If To Nothing (Singapore), Honey, My Love, So Sweet (Philippines), Please P(r)ay Attention (Thailand), Surface Tension (Philippines), and Yelo (Philippines).
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Program 2: “The Center Cannot Hold” gathers five Southeast Asian shorts confronting personal and societal breakdowns, resistance, and resilience. Films from Indonesia, Myanmar, and Philippine provinces examine fractured realities. Titles include A Metamorphosis (Myanmar), Hoy, Hoy, Ingat! (Philippines), Si Kara: Ang Babaye Nga Nag Daba-Daba (Philippines), Vox Humana (Philippines/USA/Singapore), and When the Blues Goes Marching In (Indonesia).
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Program 3: “This Is Where I Leave You” presents shorts exploring abandonment, letting go of home, memory, and love. Set in familiar yet fading landscapes, the films trace endings and the possibility of new beginnings. Titles include Agapito (Philippines/France), Before the Sea Forgets (Singapore), Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites (Cambodia/France/USA), Sammi, Who Can Detach His Body Parts (Indonesia), and Visiting Heaven Gate (Vietnam/Czech Republic).
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Program 4: “We Were Once Small Things” features six Southeast Asian coming-of-age shorts. From Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, the films depict children navigating ancestry, land, loss, and intimacy. Titles include Baby Fat (USA/Philippines), In the Valley (Malaysia), Little Rebels Cinema Club (Indonesia), My Plastic Mother (Indonesia), Ours Was A Timeless Night Burning (Philippines), and RUNO! (Philippines).
Exhibition Programs
QCShorts Expo also presents two exhibition programs.
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“Unthinkable Atrocities” examines horrors ranging from Lovecraftian and folkloric threats to extreme censorship and real-world genocide. Works by Mattie Do, Jocelyn Charles, Mohammed Almughanni, Neo Sora, Maryam Tafakory, and Christopher Radcliff challenge traditional storytelling and expand film as a tool for social reflection.
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“Unhealthy Fixations” features 2024 QCinema grantees exploring obsessions with parental failure, childhood trauma, climate change, workplace equity, and bodily insecurities. The program includes Refrain, Alaga, RAMPAGE! (o ang parada), Water Sports, Kinakausap ni Celso ang Diyos, and Supermassive Heavenly Body.
Tickets are P250 per program. QCinema 2025 runs from November 14 to 23 at Gateway, Trinoma, Eastwood, Fisher Mall, Cloverleaf, and Robinsons Galleria.
