IN THE PALACE will nominate for Oscars consideration the winners in the Best Short Fiction and Best Short Animation categories, as well as the winner in the Best National Film category. The festival is also qualified to nominate student films for the Student Academy Awards and for the Spanish Goya Awards. The official selection of the festival includes 165 films from all over the world, which will compete for awards in the following categories: Best Short Fiction, Best Short Animation, Best Short Documentary, Best Full-Length Film, Best Short Experimental, Best Short Student Fiction, Best Short Student Animation, Best Short Student Documentary, and Best National.
Over 80% of the selected films are European productions, and as many as 57 are made by female directors. Traditionally, in addition to the competition programme, IN THE PALACE will include the pitching forum FILMER FORGE PITCH (with a prize fund of over 5,000 EUR / 10,000 BGN), as well as various workshops. Georgian director Nana Janelidze will present her film Lisa, Go On, about the Georgian-Abkhazian war of 1992-1993, at a special screening during the festival. The film is a Georgian/Bulgarian coproduction, and it was produced by Nana Janelidze trough N&N production in coproduction with Dobrimir Chochov trough Doli Media Studio, with Emil Spahiyski as an associate producer. IN THE PALACE is organised by the IN THE PALACE International Short Film Festival Foundation and the Pernik Culture Foundation, with support from the Bulgarian National Film Center, the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria and the Creative Europe MEDIA Programme.
Best Short Fiction Competition:
Lady in Black (Slovenia)
Directed by Gana Čomagić
Wrecker (Ireland)
Directed by Martina McGlynn
Welcome Tahiya (Spain)
Directed by Marta Bayarri
8th February (Spain)
Directed by Sara Martinez Sanz
Scrapyard (Spain)
Directed by Miguel Ángel Olivares
The Washing Machine (Spain)
Directed by Diane Malherbe
Amanda, You Lied! (Spain)
Directed by Eva Libertad, Nuria Muñoz
The Call (Republic of Kosovo)
Directed by Mirak Zymberaj
A Good Boy (France, Belgium)
Directed by Paul Vincent de Lestrade
Boxes (North Macedonia)
Directed by Angela Dimeska
Another Nest (Hungary)
Directed by Márk Beleznai
Pigeons Are Dying, When the City Is on Fire (Greece)
Directed by Stavros Markoulakis
The Pileup (Spain)
Directed by Óscar Toribio Carbayo
Heat Spell (Canada)
Directed by Marie-Pier Dupuis
Pool Edge (Italy)
Directed by Giuseppe Zampella
They Call Me Chino (Spain)
Directed by Jesús Rivera
The First Setting Sun of Summer (Greece)
Directed by Asteris Tziolas
The Never Ending Story (Spain)
Directed by David Valero
L'âge acrobatique (France)
Directed by Mathieu Barbet
Dustlight (Greece)
Directed by Chryssanthi Kouri
Taste Life (France)
Directed by Léo-Antonin Lutinier
The Ghost You Draw on My Back (Serbia)
Directed by Nikola Stojanović
Aunque es de noche (Spain, France)
Directed by Guillermo García López
Joie de vivre (Canada)
Directed by Dada
Every Day It Gets a Little Easier (Turkey)
Directed by Cagil Bocut
Aguamiel (Mexico)
Directed by Sage Bennett
The Tuner of Silences (Portugal, Brazil)
Directed by Mário Patricínio
Please Make It Work (Switzerland, Portugal)
Directed by Daniel Soares
The Sea That Moves Things (Italy)
Directed by Lorenzo Marinelli
The Date (United Kingdom)
Directed by Amy Hodge
The Boat (Ireland)
Directed by Luke Morgan
Alarms (France)
Directed by Nicolas Panay
Summertime (Italy)
Directed by Sara Scalera
Sports Day (Slovenia)
Directed by August Adrian Braatz
Coal (Iran)
Directed by Saman Lotfian
Dive (Croatia)
Directed by Ivan Malekin
Things Unheard Of (Turkey)
Directed by Ramazan Kılıç
For People in Trouble (United Kingdom)
Directed by Alex Lawther
FÁR (Iceland)
Directed by Gunnur Martinsdóttir Schlüter
RAPT (USA)
Directed by Margot Budzyna
The Heart of Texas (USA)
Directed by Gregory JM Kasunich
Fake Shot (Italy)
Directed by Francesco Castellaneta
Beaks (France)
Directed by Xavier Demoulin
Short Animations Competition:
Canard (Switzerland)
Directed by Elie Chapuis
Cat (Germany)
Directed by Julia Ocker
Chicken (Germany)
Directed by Anna Benner
Cold Soup (Portugal)
Directed by Marta Monteiro
Drijf (Belgium)
Directed by Levi Stoops
Green Grass (France)
Directed by Élise Augarten
Her Dress for the Final (Croatia)
Directed by Martina Mestrovic
I Am a Horse (Republic of Korea)
Directed by Chaerin Im
In the Shadow of the Cypress (Iran)
Directed by Hossein Molayemi, Shirin Sohani
La perra (France)
Directed by Carla Melo Gampert
Outside (Poland)
Directed by Izabela Plucinska
Ovo (France)
Directed by Stiv Spasojevic
Peeping Mom (France)
Directed by Francis Canitrot
Pink Mountain (Greece)
Directed by Thomas Kunstler
Rhino (Germany)
Directed by Julia Ocker
Salute to the Sun (Croatia)
Directed by Darko Masnec
Sweet like Lemons (United Kingdom)
Directed by Jenny Jokela
Ted the Shark (Colombia)
Directed by Nathalia Rojas, Hector Acosta
The Boy and the Crow (Romania)
Directed by Tudor Om
The End of a Voyage (Republic of Korea)
Directed by Choi Min-ho
The Meat Seller (Italy)
Directed by Margherita Giusti
The Wide Eyed Girl and the Long Legged Boy (Portugal)
Directed by Maria Hespanhol
Walk a Mile in My Shoes (Romania)
Directed by Laura Georgescu Baron
National Short Films Competition:
Across the Naked Hills (Bulgaria)
Dirеcted by Dimitar Kutmanov
And That’s for This Christmas (Bulgaria)
Directed by Peter Vulchev
Bright City (Bulgaria)
Directed by Petya Andreeva
Everything Tastes Strange Today (Bulgaria)
Directed by Kristina Spassovska
Family Portrait of the Black Earth (Bulgaria)
Directed by Ivan Popov-Zaeka
Iskra (Bulgaria, Sweden)
Directed by Snejina Latev
Scarlet (Bulgaria)
Directed by Maria Bobeva
Talking Heads or Men of Duty or This Is Definitely Not Propaganda (Bulgaria)
Directed by Kristiyan Petrov
Two Times Two (Bulgaria)
Directed by Andrey M. Paounov
You Don't Exist (Bulgaria)
Directed by Yana Viktorova
