shnit TBILISI 2026: COMEDY - International Short Films - Closing Night

shnit TBILISI 2026: COMEDY shnit

Thursday 27 August | Doors open from 19:30

Eight short films about people trying to maintain control while everything around them becomes steadily less manageable, plus an immersive live performance, INTO SOUND, by world-touring sound artists Daeil Lee & Vladimir Iushin starting at 20:00.

COMEDY shnit closes the festival with filmmaking disasters, masculinity workshops, domestic consumer fever, shared-apartment warfare, pet-shop conflict, surreal family tension, repeated deaths in Patagonia, and an opera-loving tapeworm named Alexis.

The comedy shifts from dry observation to mockumentary, ensemble farce, absurdism, surreal fantasy, and historical invention. Some films begin with recognisable social situations and push them slightly beyond reason. Others start somewhere much stranger.

A film crew discovers that determination cannot solve every production problem. A group of men attends a rehabilitation retreat to unlearn outdated ideas about masculinity. Six women gather around a new plastic household object in 1962. Tenants fight over who must leave a crowded apartment. A disagreement about returning fish becomes an emotional reckoning.

Then there is Maria Callas and the tapeworm. We will let the film explain that relationship.

Eight films. Six countries. 1h18m43s.

TICKETS

Adult: 22 GEL | Student: 15 GEL

A full five-night festival pass is also available through the main shnit TBILISI 2026 event page.

20:00 LIVE SOUND PERFORMANCE: INTO SOUND

Artists: Daeil Lee & Vladimir Iushin

Do not miss this exclusive opening act.

Before tonight’s main short film selection, we are thrilled to host an extraordinary live performance: INTO SOUND by artists Daeil Lee & Vladimir Iushin. Fresh off performances at dozens of prestigious international art and film festivals worldwide, this powerhouse duo is bringing their acclaimed experimental soundscape to Tbilisi for one night only.

INTO SOUND turns listening into an active, mind-bending dialogue—inviting you to feel, question, and engage with our shared world through deep acoustic exploration. Is seeing really believing? Step beyond visual cinema into pure acoustic immersion and come find out!

📌 Doors open early. Make sure you are on the terrace by 20:00—the performance starts promptly before the films at 20:45.

20:45 COMEDY SHNIT SHORTS PROGRAM

A FRIEND OF OURS

François Rabes and Félicie Dutertre | France | 9 mins

Pursuing a creative dream requires passion, determination, organisation, patience, and the mistaken belief that reality will eventually cooperate.

A film crew sets out to complete a project, only to discover that production has developed ideas of its own.

François Rabes and Félicie Dutertre draw comedy from the unpredictable mechanics of independent filmmaking, where careful planning can collapse through chance, logistics, ego, or one person making a decision nobody else anticipated.

A FRIEND OF OURS blurs fiction with the familiar chaos behind the camera. It is an affectionate tribute to the people who keep filming long after the sensible response would be to stop.

ALPHA-TO-AWESOME

Annegret von Feiertag | Germany | 3 mins

A group of men enrols in a rehabilitation retreat designed to help them abandon outdated ideas about masculinity.

Through painfully sincere workshops and well-meaning instruction, they attempt several unfamiliar tasks: listening, expressing emotion, resisting the urge to explain everything, and occasionally allowing someone else to finish a sentence.

Presented as a mockumentary, ALPHA-TO-AWESOME satirises the language of self-improvement and the awkwardness that follows when personal growth becomes a managed group exercise.

The film is brief, efficient, and considerably more emotionally articulate than its participants.

PLASTIC GENERATION

Laura Domenge | France | 15 mins

In 1962, Françoise is an overwhelmed and hesitant housewife preparing to invite her neighbours over for the first time.

The reason for the gathering is a strange new household object made from plastic, a material still associated with convenience, progress, and the future.

Six very different women arrive, bringing social tension, curiosity, judgement, and their own ideas about modern life. As they examine the object, the evening begins to reveal changing expectations around domesticity, consumption, and women’s roles.

Laura Domenge uses period comedy to revisit a moment when plastic represented optimism rather than environmental crisis. The film allows the audience to enjoy that excitement while recognising the century of consequences waiting just outside the frame.

TAPEWORM ALEXIS & THE OPERA DIVA

Thaïs Odermatt | Switzerland | 11 mins

According to this film, Maria Callas did not achieve international fame through talent, discipline, or extraordinary vocal ability alone.

She also received assistance from Alexis, a tapeworm who claims to have accompanied the opera singer through her rise, turbulent private life, and eventual decline.

Thaïs Odermatt retells Callas’s biography from inside the body, giving an unwanted organism a front-row position in twentieth-century cultural history.

The premise is ridiculous. The commitment to it is absolute.

TAPEWORM ALEXIS & THE OPERA DIVA combines biography, bodily comedy, and artistic mythology into a story that is unlikely to appear in any respectable opera program.

TENANTS

Adrián Ordóñez | Spain | 14 mins

The unexpected arrival of a new tenant forces the residents of a shared apartment to answer a difficult question: who has to leave?

The candidates include a couple already collapsing, an eccentric retiree, and a naive student who may not fully understand the situation.

With space limited and patience disappearing, each person begins defending their right to remain. Politeness gives way to strategy, alliances shift, and the apartment becomes a compact model of urban survival.

Adrián Ordóñez turns contemporary housing pressure into a fast-moving ensemble comedy. TENANTS understands that shared accommodation can create community, but it can also create a meeting where everyone quietly calculates who is least essential.

ZOOLUSHKA

Kira Goldshtain | Russia | 9 mins

A customer enters a pet shop hoping to return some fish.

The clerk refuses. What begins as a straightforward disagreement over responsibility becomes an increasingly personal argument about care, pain, loneliness, and whether a living creature can be treated like an unwanted purchase.

Kira Goldshtain builds the film through dialogue that moves rapidly between the practical and the absurd. Both women arrive with firm positions. Neither is prepared for the emotional territory the conversation eventually enters.

ZOOLUSHKA turns a minor retail dispute into an unexpectedly revealing confrontation between two people who may have more in common than either would like to admit.

LE MIRACLE

Avril Lehmann and Yael Vallotton | Switzerland | 12 mins

Angelica, 60, is enjoying a rare moment alone when her demanding adult son Mattia interrupts her.

Once she finally regains the room, her attention turns to a poster of Valenti, her son’s football idol. When the player’s gaze appears to meet hers, the ordinary domestic scene begins to shift into fantasy.

Swiss directors Avril Lehmann and Yael Vallotton use magical realism and comedy to explore ageing, desire, motherhood, and the private lives older women are rarely permitted to have on screen.

The resulting confrontation between mother and son is surreal, funny, and rooted in a very recognisable struggle over who is allowed to occupy emotional space inside a family.

GARGANTA DE ARENA

Bárbara Anastácio | Portugal | 5 mins

Carmela drives across the empty landscapes of Patagonia and stages her own death.

Then she does it again.

And again.

Each performance offers a different possible disappearance, turning the act into a strange rehearsal for escape, reinvention, or control over the story others may eventually tell about her.

Filmed on location in Patagonia, GARGANTA DE ARENA uses the region’s vast landscape as both backdrop and emotional space.

Director Bárbara Anastácio combines repetition, performance, and deadpan humour to blur the boundary between reality and self-created mythology. Carmela may be trying to disappear. She is also making absolutely sure the scene is done properly.

ARRIVE EARLY

FOMO Open-Air Cinema opens one hour before each standard festival screening. On Opening Night, doors and the party begin at 18:00, three hours before the films.

Guests are advised to arrive early to secure their seat and watch the sunset over Tbilisi’s historic Old Town.

LANGUAGE

Films are presented in their original audio with English subtitles where required.

WEATHER POLICY

FOMO Open-Air Cinema screenings take considerable time and preparation to organise, and we cannot control changing weather conditions.

If FOMO officially cancels a screening because of unsuitable weather, ticket holders will receive credit for one future regular FOMO Open-Air Cinema screening. The credit can be used for an eligible open-air film outside the shnit TBILISI 2026 program.

Tickets will not be refunded because of light rain, cooler temperatures, a weather forecast, or a guest’s decision not to attend unless FOMO officially cancels the event.

Guests should check the Instagram Stories on @fomo.cinema on the day of each screening for weather updates and any changes to the event.

FOOD AND DRINK POLICY

The rooftop bar serves beer, wine, and non-alcoholic drinks. Guests are encouraged to arrive early, order a drink, and watch the sun set over Tbilisi before the program begins.

Food purchased from vendors inside Bazaari Orbeliani is allowed in the Open-Air Cinema. No alcohol from outside is allowed.

FOMO will partner with selected Bazaari food vendors to offer special discounts to ticket holders.

LOCATION

FOMO Open-Air Cinema, Bazaari Orbeliani rooftop, Tbilisi.

A five-minute walk from Liberty Square metro and one minute from the Public Service Hall. Take the stairs at the Atoneli Street entrance to reach the terrace.

HOW TO FIND FOMO

Enter Bazaari Orbeliani via Atoneli Street above Carrefour and take the stairs on your left. Continue upstairs to the rooftop and follow the FOMO signage.

You can also check the Find Us Story Highlight on @fomo.cinema for a video showing exactly how to find us.

CLOSING TIME

Due to rooftop noise restrictions, all terrace events must conclude by 22:40 each evening.

ABOUT SHNIT

shnit worldwide shortsfestival is a transnational festival connecting filmmakers and audiences across cities and continents.

The festival is dedicated to short filmmaking as an independent cinematic form. Its programs bring together fiction, documentary, animation, experimental work, comedy, and drama, arranged for contrast, rhythm, and conversation.

shnit TBILISI 2026 is the festival’s first edition in Tbilisi, presented at FOMO Open-Air Cinema.