Category / AK26 SHORTS • DIRECTORS’ CHOICE / Films 2026

THE FORTUNATE |
Habtamu Gebrehiwot |
Ethiopia 2025, Original with English subtitles, 15 min |

During a pastoral counselling session with a choir singer, Pastor Mateyos finds himself caught in a moral dilemma. Gradually, secrets and contradictions come to light that threaten to shake not only his own life but also the congregation he leads.

SUMARA MARÉ |
Samira Vera-Cruz |
Cape Verde 2023, Original with English subtitles, 8 min |

On the Cape Verdean island of Santiago, many women depend on collecting and selling sand from the beaches to make a living. Yet in doing so, they are also destroying the very natural resources on which their livelihoods depend.

THE LAST HARVEST |
Nuno Boaventura Miranda |
Cape Verde, Portugal 2025, Original with English subtitles, 22 min |
In Lisbon’s Cape Verdean community, the lives of three people intersect: young Gabriel fears he will forget the face of his late father.

Teboho Edkins |
South Africa / France /Germany 2025 I Original with English subtitles, 38 min |
In the presence of the director |

Following the crash of a Boeing 737 MAX in Ethiopia in March 2019, which claimed the lives of 157 people, including Teboho Edkins’ younger brother, the filmmaker and his father travel together to the crash site.