SHORTS

A fashion designer returns to her hometown of Taichung, Taiwan, after seventeen years of self-imposed exile, embarking on a deeply personal journey of reconciliation with the family and heritage she left behind. Through unexpected connections and the discovery of her grandfather’s enduring love, Wenlen learns that coming home means healing old wounds, honoring the past, and finding her place in a community that never stopped waiting for her.

On a late-night honeymoon adventure through the quiet streets of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, a newlywed couple stumbles upon a mysterious claw machine arcade glowing with otherworldly blue light, where they witness a cryptic encounter that blurs the line between magic and delusion. As they pursue what might be faith or folly, their journey becomes an intimate exploration of belief, desire, and the lengths we’ll go to hold onto wonder—and each other.

A third-generation scooter wheel repairman in Da Nang, Vietnam, contemplates the legacy of his family’s craft and the unexpected ways his daughters have inherited their ancestors’ sacred calling. Through patient reflection on circles, cycles, and what it truly means to mend the world, he discovers that the most meaningful work is not always the work of our hands, but the work of our hearts.

A photographer navigates the neon-lit streets of Ho Chi Minh City at night, wrestling with his own pain while confronting the profound impossibility of truly knowing what lies beneath anyone’s surface. Through chance encounters and fleeting moments of human connection, he discovers that empathy lives not in understanding others, but in accepting the beautiful mystery of their unshared inner lives.

When a renowned scholar of American evil meets a mysterious stranger in a small Maine bar, their late-night conversation about the Devil’s geography becomes a haunting exploration of identity, certainty, and the terrifying possibility that evil wears the face of the ordinary. Through wit, deception, and darkness, the story asks whether we can ever truly know who—or what—sits across from us at the table.

A weary friend grows tired of hearing the same intoxicating origin story told again and again at Manhattan parties, until one summer night of urban tension and longing, he discovers the unexpected power of his own forgotten voice. Through competing narratives of small-town America, the story explores how the stories we tell—and when we finally choose to tell them—can transform connection into something achingly real.

When a man loses his way on a desert trail, he discovers that losing the path means losing himself entirely—dissolving into the landscape and becoming one with everything around him. Through a surreal journey that blurs the boundaries between nature and civilization, Mason learns that sometimes we must become nothing in order to find our way back to something real.

She called shortly after midnight. The call seemed to come at both the right time – Rodge having just stumbled back from the pool bar – and entirely “out of the blue,” as they say – it being lightning and blue being the sky. Months had passed since Rodge’s phone last rang. No one had […]