shnit TBILISI 2026: HOT GREY International Short Films - Night 3

shnit TBILISI 2026: HOT GREY

20:30 Tuesday 25 August | Doors open from 19:30

Five films about memory, guilt, family, mental health, environmental damage, and the peculiar systems people learn to live inside.

HOT GREY is the most eclectic program in shnit TBILISI 2026. The selection moves from animated psychological fantasy to Spanish dark comedy, Georgian urban documentary, French social satire, and a stark account of industrial pollution.

At the centre of the evening is LIFT LADY, filmed around one of Tbilisi’s historic paid elevators. Its world of brutalist architecture, Soviet infrastructure, and daily routine will be immediately familiar to anyone who has spent time exploring our city beyond its centre.

Elsewhere, a man travels backward through childhood memories shaped by obsessive-compulsive disorder. A woman invents an increasingly elaborate story after accidentally running over her nephew’s dog. A Christmas dinner becomes a confrontation with generational masculinity. An industrial promise of prosperity leaves a village with a century of consequences.

The films differ widely in style, but they share an interest in what remains after the original event has passed. A memory. A lie. A building. A family habit. Contamination no one can see.

Five films. Five countries. 1h25m08s.

TICKETS

Adult: 22 GEL | Student: 15 GEL

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

HOT GREY PROGRAM

TRADING CARDS

Radheya Jang | Australia | 15 mins

An enigmatic man travels backward through time to find his younger self. What appears to be a nostalgic return to childhood trading cards gradually reveals a much heavier purpose.

Director Radheya Jang draws on his own experience of obsessive-compulsive disorder, transforming intrusive thoughts and repeated behaviours into dark animated fantasy. Childhood collecting becomes a metaphor for the attempt to organise a mind that refuses to remain orderly.

TRADING CARDS explores identity, mental health, and the erosion of childhood innocence without reducing its subject to explanation. Its images move between comfort and threat, showing how the objects we once loved can become attached to memories we would rather control.

NOBODY BARKS

Júlia Coldwell Serra | Spain | 20 mins

Candela lives a monotonous life working in her family’s dry-cleaning business in a small inland town.

During the local festival, she accidentally runs over her nephew’s dog. Rather than confess and ruin his birthday, she invents a legend about a canine pilgrimage to a sacred tree and invites him to join her in the search.

What begins as an attempt to protect a child becomes a rapidly expanding problem. Candela’s story creates new expectations, new questions, and a journey she cannot easily abandon.

Set against a traditional Spanish village celebration, NOBODY BARKS combines dark humour with folklore. It turns one terrible decision into a modern fable about guilt, responsibility, and the stories people tell when the truth feels impossible.

LIFT LADY

Marcin Modzelewski | Poland | 25m

Brutalist architecture, a toll elevator, and the surrounding urban surrealism form the daily world of Mzia, a former sniper who now operates one of Tbilisi’s historic paid lifts.

These unusual elevators remain part of everyday life in several of the city’s Soviet-era residential buildings. Passengers pay a small fee to travel between steeply separated streets and neighbourhoods, while an attendant oversees the machinery and the people passing through it.

Polish director Marcin Modzelewski blends documentary observation with stylised fiction, placing Mzia inside a transport system that feels practical, obsolete, theatrical, and completely ordinary at the same time.

The result is a tragicomic portrait of modern Georgia shaped by Soviet infrastructure, personal memory, resilience, and the strange continuity of professions that exist almost nowhere else.

For Tbilisi audiences, LIFT LADY offers the rare experience of seeing a familiar part of the city reframed through an outsider’s camera.

THE TEARS OF PATRIARCHY

Jean-Sébastien Bernard and Alban Chaplet | France | 15 mins

Encouraged by her boyfriend, Emma invites her parents over for Christmas Eve dinner.

Her father’s familiar grumpiness immediately tightens the atmosphere around the table. As the evening continues, small disagreements open into a wider confrontation over masculinity, family expectations, and the habits one generation expects the next to tolerate.

Jean-Sébastien Bernard and Alban Chaplet build the film around an ordinary family gathering where politeness becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. The comedy comes through recognition: familiar arguments, defensive reactions, and the particular danger of trying to resolve decades of inherited behaviour over one festive meal.

THE TEARS OF PATRIARCHY uses social satire and ensemble comedy to examine how quickly progressive intentions can collapse when the person being challenged has no interest in changing.

WHITE VEIL

Žiga Ciber | Ireland | 10 mins

A century ago, a factory in the village of Anhovo promised employment, development, and prosperity. What it left behind was a slow environmental and public-health disaster.

WHITE VEIL is inspired by the real history of Anhovo in Slovenia, where decades of asbestos production caused lasting contamination and serious consequences for the surrounding community.

Žiga Ciber approaches this history through stark, carefully composed imagery. The film considers pollution as an inheritance, something that remains inside landscapes and bodies long after the industry responsible has declined.

The title refers to a material that can appear pale, light, and almost harmless. The reality beneath it is considerably darker.

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.

Founded in Bern, Switzerland, the festival has developed into a multi-city international event 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.