Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2024, Japan’s largest festival of short films and a qualifying event for the U.S. Academy Awards, will be held from June 4 to 17 at various venues in Tokyo. There is also an online section that runs through June 30.
The festival’s roughly 270 films, from 114 countries and territories, are not only showreels for emerging talents: Well-known names such as Lea Seydoux, Adrien Brody and Ben Whishaw also appear in the credits. And a wide range of genres are found in the programs, from dramas that examine current social issues to animations that push the limits of the imagination.
The official competition screens films in five main sections — International, Asia International, Japan, Animation and Non-fiction. The festival also presents noncompetition sections, including the Sports Program (featuring films with sports motifs), the Women in Cinema Project (highlighting films with women-centered stories) and the Shibuya Diversity Program (focusing on the Tokyo subcenter that is a hub for youth culture).