For the third time, the Multiverse section brings together remarkable short films that did not fit within the narrow confines of the International Competition. Yet this distinction is only formal. The defining feature of Multiverse lies in its conceptual framework, uniting the freshest documentary, experimental, and fiction films across three thematic sessions.

This year, the programme is built around films marked by the contradictions that shape humans of our time: between history and the present, the personal and the social, the natural and the technological, the lost and the radically new—or in the fascinating space of countless other “in-betweens” where we find ourselves today.

The three Multiverse screenings can be viewed as an anthropological trilogy. Its first part explores the notion of “home” as a vessel of both individual and collective memory. In one film, Who Was Here?, even the cosy domain of family memory is eroded by the intrusion of new technology.

The second screening revolves around the tension between the individual and the roles imposed by society. Sometimes this manifests as duty, sometimes as the (un)intended police brutality, or the arduous struggle of a single mother for survival (Upon Sunrise). This session also includes a meditation balancing on the edge of experiment and musical, reflecting on the patterns of mass culture that shape individual experience (Lamento).

The third screening offers reflections of a broader, more philosophical order on the social and technological conditions of human existence in the present and future. It begins with the essay film Euclidean Man (featuring the voice of renowned media theorist Marshall McLuhan), and concludes with the biblically inflected animation We Will Not Be the Last of Our Kind by Mili Pecherer, a member of this year’s International Competition jury.

Finally, several iconic figures of world cinema grace the Multiverse sessions, either through their presence or poignant absence: Jean-Luc Godard (Rolle Workshop, a Journey), actor Michael Madsen in one of his last roles (The Things We Carry, directed by Thibaud Goarin), and British avant-garde legend John Smith in a film of his own (Being John Smith).

Diana Abu Usef, Katerina Beloglazova, Maria Gotlib, Vasily Stepanov