Concorto Daily – August 23, 2026

Daria’s Night Flowers (گل‌های شب ِدریا) – Maryam Tafakory

As seen by Vanessa Mangiavacca

Maryam Tafakory is one of the most interesting and known figures  in contemporary experimental cinema, especially among those who use archives as a political, feminist space. Her latest short film perfectly aligns with her now  recognizable filmography which, starting from images from pre- and post-revolutionary Iranian cinema, comes back to the archive to wrest it away from the narratives that rigidly shaped it and to reveal  what remained silent in order to  give voice to the stories that were left on the margins.

The archive becomes a place of liberation and disobedience, but also, quite subtly y, of revenge: a space where what has been repressed can finally reclaim its voice. Daria’s Night Flowers is a silent yet rebellious poem, choreographed through small gestures, stems and buds, dedicated to all the “Darias” who have followed their own desires in a society that fears women’s independence and controls their bodies, thought and desires, denying them even the chance to love, or even to imagine, other women. In Tafakory’s film, what is destined to be erased, buried, burned or obscured can finally bloom, without boundaries, all the way to the waters of the sea.

Acid City – Jack Wedge, Will Freudenheim
As seen by Francesca Marchesini

Documentary and animation, fiction and social critique blend together in the short film by Jack Wedge and Will Freudenheim. Acid City is a lost city, surrounded by a sea of stagnant water, where the population lives in isolation. In Acid City, only one law reigns: the law of water. Clean water, bound to criminal dynamics; water purified and chemically cleansed; water that falls toxic from the sky, polluted even before reaching the ground. Acid City could be any city in the world, the fate already written for our polluted Earth. More than a short film, a “ghost of Christmas future.”

Milan au Village des Automates (Milan in the automaton Village) – Victor Louise
As seen by Matilde Ambiveri

Milan finds himself coming to terms with the suicide of Fred, a friend he had lost touch with. During his summer job at an amusement park, he meets Valentine, a new employee. Between late-night walks, music, and conversation, the two end up sharing personal memories and experiences. “Isn’t it strange how one moment you can’t live without someone, and then suddenly you stop seeing them altogether?” The short film by Maxime Roy and Camille Léon-Fucien follows two people who, amidst the park’s rides and the city lights, seem to find momentary solace for their shared solitude.

Allá en el Cielo (Nobody Knows the World) by Roddy Dextre
As seen by Anna Vullo

In the suburbs of Lima the eleven-year-old Chito takes care of carrier pigeons, tools for his older brother Rockio’s drug dealing. Chito’s childhood will soon be brought to a dramatic end, when the local violence takes his brother’s life. While the community comes together through ritual and music, Chito will look for a way to move on through an act of humanity.

Mother and Ulysses – Mushi Cai
As seen by Francesca Marchesini

Cinema as a tool for unity and reconciliation, a bridge between generations. Mushi Cai directs a short film about separation from one’s family, but also about reuniting with loved ones. It is a film about growing up, about leaving home, about a mother who doesn’t know how to handle the conflict, and about how cinema manages to converge and translate all of this onto the screen—how even a single film can be the bridge that connects two souls distant in space and spirit. A return to Ithaca in 35mm.

The Dying of the Young Deer (Zza szyby podgladam jak umiera sarna, mloda) – Angelika Cygal
As seen by Anna Vullo

Helka leaves the family home and walks across the Polish countryside with her bed’s duvet which her mother insists she bring along. She must reach her future husband on the other side of the country. Angelika Cygal poetically and sensitively weaves together images of a rural landscape with a universal story of folklore, tradition and growth.

Le Bain des Sirènes (Sisters’ Swim) – Lola Degove
As seen by Vanessa Mangiavacca

Through sharp, precise color blocks—vibrant and alive, steeped in a deliberately digital, imperfect, and pulsing aesthetic—director Lola Degove tells the story of two vastly different sisters who reunite, as they do every year, in the town of Ostend for the traditional New Year’s Day dip. A ritual that becomes an opportunity to bridge the distance and try to heal a bond fractured by the loss of their mother. As so often happens in animated shorts, it is animation itself—a medium by its very nature drawn and artificial—that turns out to be the most empathetic instrument for drawing near to reality, stripping emotions of all superstructure and allowing complex feelings to explode in all their authenticity: love, grief, loss, affection, the simplicity of a shared glance.

Presented at Cannes and making its Italian premiere at Concorto, Le Bain des sirènes hits you straight in the gut, thanks also to dialogue that seeks something intensely real in the sound and vibrations of the human voice. The words, the hesitations, the silences, and everything left hanging between one phrase and the next capture all the fragility of a relationship trying to find its way back: what emerges is a funny, touching portrait of two sisters who, amidst laughter, friction, and wounds that have never fully healed, are searching for a way back to one another.