Tiger Short Competition
The power of short. An expert jury hands out 3 equal awards each year to films selected for the Tiger Short Competition.
Short films can be found at many places during IFFR: as part of video installations, preceding feature films and, naturally, in combined programmes. Films between 1 and 63 minutes long, from all over the world. There are fiction films, experimental work and documentaries. Short films prove that filmmakers play with a whole range of cinematic forms and ideas.
The short films have their own competition at IFFR. What differentiates it from the Tiger Competition for feature-length films is the fact that it’s not just for young and upcoming talents; all filmmakers have a chance at winning. 20 shorts are competing for three equal Tiger Short Awards at IFFR 2025, each worth €5,000.
Tiger Short Competition 2025
IFFR announces 20 short films selected for the Tiger Short Competition in 2025. The jury consists of Angela Haardt, Frank Sweeney, and Yaoting Zhang, who will choose the winners of three equal awards worth €5,000 each.
The short films selected are:
- Baby Blue Benzo, Sara Cwynar, United States, Germany
- BAN♡ITS, Omar Chowdhury, Belgium, Bangladesh, South Korea
- Bury Us in a Lone Desert, Nguyễn Lê Hoàng Phúc, Vietnam
- Capitol Limited, Lily Ekimian Ragheb, Ahmed T. Ragheb, United States
- Common Pear, Gregor Božič, Slovenia, United Kingdom
- La durmiente, Maria Inês Gonçalves, Portugal, Spain
- Empty Rider, Lawrence Lek, Switzerland, United Kingdom
- The Garden of Electric Delights, Billy Roisz, Austria
- Hepingli Playthrough, Zheng Yuan, China
- I Wan’na Be Like You, Margit Lukács, Persijn Broersen, Netherlands, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany
- Memory Is an Animal, It Barks with Many Mouths, Eva Giolo, Belgium, Italy
- Merging Bodies, Adrian Paci, Italy
- A Metamorphosis, Lin Htet Aung, Myanmar
- Now, Hear Me Good, Dwayne LeBlanc, United States
- Les rites de passage, Florian Fischer, Johannes Krell, Germany
- The Rock Speaks, Amy Louise Wilson, Francois Knoetze, South Africa, Spain
- Suspicions About the Hidden Realities of Air, Sam Drake, United States
- Temo Re, Anka Gujabidze, Georgia
- Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, Kevin Walker, Irene Zahariadis, Greece, United States
- World at Stake, Susanna Flock, Adrian Jonas Haim, Jona Kleinlein, Austria
Jury 2025
Frank Sweeney
Frank Sweeney is an artist with a research-based practice, using found material to approach questions of collective memory, experience and identity through film and sound.
Recent work includes Few Can See (winner of the Tiger Shorts Competition IFFR 2023, Special Mention at Filmadrid Awards, commissioned by EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial), People enjoy my company (Best Short Documentary at LUFF Switzerland, Irish Museum of Modern Art 21-22, Transmediale Berlin 2021, BFI Southbank LSFF 2022) and Made Ground (a collaboration with Eva Richardson McCrea, Temple Bar Gallery 2021, purchased for the Arts Council Collection in 2021).
Recent awards include the Arts Council’s Next Generation Award, aemi + Sirius Film Commission 2022 and a 3 Year Studio at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios. Frank’s recent film work is distributed by Video Data Bank in the U.S.
Yaoting Zhang
A graduate of the China Film Archive, Yaoting Zhang previously served as programmer for Shanghai International Film Festival, Beijing International Film Festival and Broadway Cinematheque MOMA (Beijing, China). Since 2018, she has worked as the acquisition and production manager of world sales and production company Rediance, participating in productions such as Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Cannes), The Breaking Ice (Anthony Chen, Cannes Un Certain Regard), The Human Surge 3 (Eduardo Williams, Locarno), She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones (Qu Youjia, Berlinale Generation) and Silent Friend (Ildikó Enyedi, in post-production). Now based in Lisbon, she has served as a jury member for industry events including REC Tarragona International Film Festival’s Primer Test WIP lab and FEST New Directors New Films Festival’s Pitching Forum.
Angela Haardt
Angela Haardt (b. 1942, Darmstadt, Germany) is a curator of film and video art and lives in Berlin. She founded and directed the Duisburger Filmwoche (1978–1981 and 1984), directed and thoroughly renovated the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (1990–1997), worked as an advisor for the Wüstenrot Foundation, co-organised the European Short Film Biennale (1999–2005), and has edited books on film schools in the USA and on short film in Japan.
She has edited several German-language books on documentary film and conferences in connection with Duisburger Filmwoche, had teaching positions on film at HfbK Hamburg and UdK Berlin between 2000 and 2009 and at Art Academy at Weissensee, Berlin since 2023 as well as co-organising conferences and working as a script consultant. She served as selection committees and juries for funding bodies in West Germany and at international film and media art festivals in Germany and internationally.
Past winners
2024
Crazy Lotus (Thailand) by Naween Noppakun
Few Can See (Ireland) by Frank Sweeney
Workers’ Wings (Kosovo) by Ilir Hasanaj
2023
Natureza Humana by Mónica Lima (Portugal, Germany)
Tito by Kervens Jimenez and Taylor McIntosh (Haiti)
What the Soil Remembers by José Cardoso (South Africa, Ecuador)
2022
Becoming Male in the Middle Ages by Pedro Neves Marques (Portugal)
Nazarbazi by Maryam Tafakory (Iran)
Nosferasta: First Bite by Bayley Sweitzer and Adam Khalil (USA)
2021
Maat by Fox Maxy (USA)
Sunsets, everyday by Basir Mahmood (Italy)
Terranova by Alejandro Pérez Serrano and Alejandro Alonso Estrella (Cuba)
2020
Apparition by Ismaïl Bahri (France)
Communicating Vessels by Maïder Fortuné and Annie MacDonell (Canada)
Sun Dog by Dorian Jespers (Belgium, Russia)
2019
Wong Ping’s Fables 1 by Wong Ping (Hong Kong)
Ultramarine by Vincent Meessen (Belgium/France/Canada)
Freedom of Movement by Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani (Germany/Italy)
2018
Mountain Plain Mountain by Araki Yu and Daniel Jacoby (Spain)
Rose Gold by Sara Cwynar (USA)
With History in a Room Filled with People with Funny Names 4 by Korakrit Arunanondchai (USA)
2017
Rubber Coated Steel by Lawrence Abu Hamdan (Lebanon/Germany)
El cuento de Antonia by Jorge Cadena (Colombia/Switzerland)
Sakhisona by Prantik Basu (India)
2016
Dream English Kid 1964-1999 AD by Mark Leckey (United Kingdom)
Faux départ by Yto Barrada (Morocco)
Engram of Returning by Daïchi Saïto (Canada)
2015
Things by Ben Rivers (United Kingdom)
La fièvre by Safia Benhaim (France)
Greetings to the Ancestors by Ben Russell (USA/South Africa/United Kingdom)
2014
La isla by Dominga Sotomayor and Katarzyna Klimkiewicz (Chile/Poland/Denmark)
Giant by Salla Tykkä (Finland, Romania
The Chimera of M. by Sebastian Buerkner (United Kingdom)
2013
Janus by Erik van Lieshout (Netherlands)
The Tiger’s Mind by Beatrice Gibson (United Kingdom)
Unsupported Transit by Zachary Formwalt (Netherlands)
2012
Generator by Makino Takashi (Japan)
Big in Vietnam by Mati Diop (France)
Springtime by Jeroen Eisinga (Netherlands)
2011
Stardust by Nicolas Provost (Belgium)
Pastourelle by Nathaniel Dorsky (USA)
Jan Villa by Natasha Mendonca (USA/India)
2010
Atlantiques by Mati Diop (Senegal/France)
Wei Wen (Condolences) by Ying Liang (China)
Wednesday Morning 2 A.M. by Lewis Klahr (USA)
2009
Bernadette by Duncan Campbell (UK)
Despair by Galina Myznikova & Sergey Provorov (Russia)
A Necessary Music by Beatrice Gibson (UK)
2008
Ah, Liberty! by Ben Rivers (UK)
As I Lay Dying by Ho Yuhang (Malaysia)
Observando el cielo by Jeanne Liotta (USA)
2007
Video Game by Vipin Vijay (India, 2006)
Hinterland by Geoffrey Boulangé (France, 2007)
The Flag by Köken Ergun (Turkey, 2007)
2006
Beginnings by Roy Villevoye (Netherlands, 2006)
Rabbit by Run Wrake (United Kingdom, 2005)
Who I Am and What I Want by David Shrigley & Chris Shepherd (United Kingdom, 2005)
2005
Interlude by Joost van Veen (Netherlands)
Nuuk by Thomas Köner (Germany)
Veere by David Lammers (Netherlands)
Special mention:
Fare bene Mìkles by Christian Angeli (Italy)