One of the unique treats about any film festival worth its salt is the array of short film showcases. These bite-size cinematic cornucopias showcase up-and-coming filmmakers and finely tuned ideas that get overlooked by most movie consumers. This year's SpIFF features seven themed collections of shorts over the weekend, highlighting Northwest filmmakers, Indigenous and queer stories, and films from around the globe. To give you a taste of the array of offerings, we highlighted some of the standout selections via recommended if you like (RIYL) suggestions.
Courage
Best of the Northwest
RIYL: Homeward Bound, kitties
If you enjoyed the Oscar-nominated animated cat film Flow, then you're likely to adore this sub-3 minute hit of catnip as a real feline journeys across diverse terrain on an adventurous mission. (SS)
Dandelion
Queer Shorts
RIYL: Comedians making dramatic turns
While Vic Michaelis is an alternative comedy favorite for their work on Dropout and Comedy Bang Bang, they prove their dramatic chops as a social worker trying to find a rebellious queer girl a home after getting kicked out of her Christian group home. As the pair squabble while trying to find a place for the teen to stay, it's slowly revealed that there's more to this helping soul than initially meets the eye. (SS)
Expo '74 - Fair to Future
PNW Makers
RIYL: Local history lessons, World's Fair nostalgia
In case you didn't get enough info last year during the 50th anniversary commemoration of Spokane's hosting of the 1974 World's Fair, Expo expert Bill Youngs narrates a short history of the monumental event, bolstered by historic photographs and archival footage. (SS)
Ghariba & Ajeeb
Worlds of Animation
RIYL: Folklore, Middle Eastern jewelry art
Ghariba and Ajeeb are growing up in separate villages that were once united before a river appeared and split it in two. Despite that stretch of water and the ill-tempered giant crocodile that prevents anyone from crossing it, the two manage to strike up a friendship from their respective banks. But then Ajeeb disappears, and Ghariba resolves to find him. True to the spirit of folktales the world over, she leans on her own resourcefulness — and some talking animals — to make the journey. Directed and animated by Algerian-born Boubaker Boukhari, Ghariba & Ajeeb's foreground stop-motion animation is rendered in an ornate, handcrafted style that showcases Boukhari's fine arts training as a jeweler. (EJI)
It's Not About Ketchup
World Shorts I
RIYL: Scenes from a Marriage (ultra-abridged)
"I love this asshole so much," says Fatima as she surveys the series of sketches she's drawn from memory of her partner Abdullah's expressive eyes. That statement says a lot about the tenderness, friction and honesty in director Nasser Saeed's pithy portrait of a couple who are outwardly unremarkable but extraordinary to each other. Saeed and Ahmed Alnouman's handheld, fly-on-the-wall camerawork and casual interviews capture the pair bickering in a mix of English and Arabic over condiment spills and suspected flirtations, then cuddling on the couch and making one another laugh. No, it's not about ketchup. It's about love — warts and all. (EJI)
Worlds of Animation
RIYL: Historical preservation, HGTV
The lifecycle of a house jumps off the screen in the best entry of the Worlds of Animation showcase. It's as if the home gets built out of thin air piece by piece, with Alexa Tremblay-Francoeur's gorgeous animation making every detail seem cozy and alive — like how the flowery wallpaper actually blossoms into its full form. As the years pass, the home shifts though renovations and new uses, until the abode truly feels like a living organism. If you've ever wondered why people get into historical preservation of old buildings, The Little Ancestor sums it all up in just over 11 minutes. (SS)
Skroll
World of Animation
RIYL: MTV's Liquid Television (RIP), Adult Swim, Miyazaki films
Packaged as bystander footage and social media videos from an alternate animated dimension, Dutch director Marten Visser's Skroll is a six-minute tribute to the bizarre. In this fast-paced series of wordless vignettes, it's perfectly natural to find extreme athletes riding the blast from a mushroom cloud, a drunk man's anthropomorphized vomit cradling him protectively or a giant chicken-legged lamprey enjoying its newfound freedom. If you dig the eerie whimsy of Miyazaki films, you'll find plenty of similar creatures here. In fact, Miyazaki himself (well, his head at least) even makes a surprise cameo alongside figures like Calcifer from Howl's Moving Castle. (EJI)
Their Universe
World Shorts II + Queer Shorts
RIYL: Ghost, love after life
SpIFF's best short is this stunningly tender and beautiful Korean film, which finds a boy who died in an accident suddenly texting his heartbroken lover out of the blue. As their conversation slowly unfolds, the piece becomes a meditation on the type of true love that transcends life and lights up the cosmos with its radiant warmth. (SS)
Wakanyeja Kin Wana Ku Pi (The Children Are Coming Home)
Through Indigenous Eyes
RIYL: National Parks, righting history's wrongs
Directed by Andy Wakeman and steeped in the evocative visual language of the advertising world where he got his start, Wakanyeja Kin Wana Ku Pi is a mini-doc that takes its name from a 40-acre parcel of land near South Dakota's Bear Butte (Mato Paha). The tract was purchased by the nonprofit Cheyenne River Youth Project in 2023 as a way to reverse the legacy of federal maneuverings that forcibly separated the Indigenous tribes — in this case, the Lakota Nation — from their ancestral lands. Wakeman's wistful, 10-minute film showcases a group of teenagers as they travel back to this and other sacred sites like Wind Cave (Washun Niya) and Devil's Tower (Mathó Thípila) in an effort to reconnect with their culture. (EJI) ♦
SpIFF 2025 Shorts Programs
Saturday, March 8
Worlds of Animation 1 1 am, The Magic Lantern
PNW Makers 1:30 pm, The Magic Lantern
World Shorts I 4 pm, The Magic Lantern
Best of the Northwest 6 pm, Garland Theater
Sunday, March 9
World Shorts II 11:15 am, The Magic Lantern
Through Indigenous Eyes 1:30 pm, The Magic Lantern
Queer Shorts 3:45 pm, The Magic Lantern
