Imagine a Kaleidoscopic Future: Extremely Short Films at Fest Anča 2026 (GoCritic! Review)

An annual highlight of Fest Anča (Žilina, Slovakia) is the Extremely Short Section of Extremely Short Films, which this year brought together 36 animated films in only 50 minutes – many of them running less than 60 seconds. Ranging from personal story-capsules to abstract moving-image sketches, this category offers a valuable cross-section of work by emerging talents around the world.

The sidebar becomes a creative hub in which talents celebrate their uniqueness despite (or perhaps because of) the constraints of brevity. But how to propel a story and impress the audience in such a fleeting period of time? It does not have to be precise or explicit. An appealing concept – or a witty hook – in fact turns out to be the key to winning the audience’s hearts.

‘Robert Yoghurt’ (2024), directed by Sacha Beeley, makes fun of indulgent mother-son relationships in just two minutes. The innocent-sounding expression “Love you, Mummy!" repeated by Robert (the son) throughout the whole film proves a stubborn earworm. Alexis Beaumont’s one-minute ‘A Little More Action’ (2025) satirizes police violence by presenting officers in competing sports teams during a protest; brutal reality becomes larkishly absurd (featuring a prominent cameo from a certain Emmanuel Macron). The two-minute ‘Flesh.exe’ (2025) is inspired by the familiar experience of forgetting an online password. Directed by the four-strong Hungarian team of Sára Bertalan, Veszna Békési, Alexandra Tóth, and Hanna Horváth, it also explores how our relationship with cyberspace is shaped by digital algorithms.

Within such a compression of time, the task of delivering an instantly recognizable image becomes even more challenging for animators than usual. As a result, it is always crucial for these filmmakers to grasp a strong and sustained vision of the world(s) they invent. Fire became a notably recurring motif: Cecilia Marie Hökenschnieder internalizes what burning feels like in ‘Fire inside me’ (2025), demonstrating her pain when experiencing menstruation. ‘FireFly’ (2026) by Andrea Plánková empowers the eponymous creatures with heightened perception, leading to the discovery of an ongoing forest conflagration. Lila Mendes’ tonally offbeat ‘barbecue’ (2024) meanwhile draws from the director's amusing experience at a family reunion, resulting in an unexpected tragic accident.

When I was watching these extremely short films (presented late-night and outdoors at the small Zárečie train station), there was one question I couldn’t help pondering: as our viewing habits continue to change, will this type of production become dominant in the next five years? Within this fast-changing world, especially when short-form media have exponentially occupied most people’s spare time, what is revealed about contemporary festival programming?

Undoubtedly, the audience’s appetite for varied ultra-short-form content is growing even stronger. Watching the Extremely Short program at times felt a bit like browsing a streaming platform or scrolling through TikTok. The overall curation disrupts the lineage of how different films are usually brought together under a general theme, offering a novel way to comprehend and reconfigure these works in a non-hierarchical sequence. More importantly, it challenges viewers’ traditional way of watching, creating more room to interpret something that may outgrow their initial intentions.

Although these animated shorts are diverse in their genres and topics, they share a common sense of originality, imagination, and passion. The very short duration should not be thought of as a “cut corner”. Instead, it positively stimulates creativity, spurring imaginative possibilities more powerfully than longer formats might achieve. Such a form opens up a kaleidoscopic future of possibilities. Whether or not it will become mainstream remains debatable, but we can imagine it becoming an increasingly visible trend embraced not only by filmmakers and programmers, but also by audiences. 

• Our coverage of the Fest Anča
• All our GoCritic! reviews

contributed by: Rino Lu

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