10 Must-Watch Shorts at Clermont-Ferrand 2025

variety.com:

Ben Croll Unlike other showcases with a strong market component, the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival does not require selected films to arrive as world premieres.

That choice stems as much from allegiance to a devoted local audience that expects the best as from an understanding of wider industry dynamics. “Our market also needs high standards,” says programmer and coordinator Julie Rousson. “For filmmakers, experiencing a short film screened in a packed, reactive hall is unique—it’s an industry moment and a public one, and that combination can only help filmmakers gain greater visibility and industry acclaim.” Titles like Andrea Gatopoulos’s AI-assisted sci-fi freak-out “The Eggregores’ Theory” can first bank esteem across an international circuit in order to then hit the French festival of festivals – and its attending market – as an already hot proposition.

And out of Clermont-Ferrand, a world of opportunity awaits. Below are ten buzz titles reaching Clermont-Ferrand this year. “A Move,” (Elahe Esmaili, UK, Iran) Returning to her hometown of Mashhad after many years in the UK, filmmaker Elahe Esmaili finds herself no longer willing to wear a hijab – instigating a generational conflict set against Iran’s Woman-Life-Freedom protests.

The doc won a Special Youth Jury Award at last year’s Visions du Reel and has remained a festival standout since. “An Attempted Escape,” (Sébastien Betbeder, France) Filmmaker and festival stalwart Sébastien Betbeder returns with a doc about an acting workshop run by French humorist Sébastien Chassagne and offered exclusively to prison inmates.