shnit TBILISI 2026: LOVE shnit | International Short Films - Night 2

shnit TBILISI 2026: LOVE shnit

20:30 Sunday 23 August | Doors open from 19:30

Love rarely arrives in the right place, at the right time, or in a form anyone immediately understands.

LOVE shnit brings together eight short films from eight countries, moving between attraction, loneliness, family distance, romantic anxiety, missed encounters, and relationships reaching their breaking point.

The program avoids the usual romantic packaging. One couple confronts the end of their marriage beside a broken-down car. Two strangers communicate through notes left inside a Georgian apartment lift. A solitary capybara begins to question whether he is lonely. Elsewhere, love is expressed without dialogue, complicated by fear, or discovered while someone is still learning how to let go of the past.

Some of these films are tender. Some are awkward. One involves a mysterious psychedelic toad.

Eight films. Eight countries. 1h15m19s.

TICKETS

Adult: 22 GEL | Student: 15 GEL

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

LOVE SHNIT PROGRAM

(HE)R

Milana Okhting | Russia | 24 mins

Sergei is a dreamer who spends his days working in a pawn shop, avoiding responsibility, and losing himself in cars and dubstep.

Meeting Zheka forces him beyond the comfortable limits of his existing life. Attraction brings possibility, but it also exposes him to the judgement of his friends and a difficult reality he is not prepared to confront.

At almost 24 minutes, (HE)R is the longest film in the program and gives its characters room to move beyond first impressions. The film examines what love demands when affection collides with social prejudice, fear, and emotional immaturity.

2 IN 2

Nela Gluhak | Croatia | 5 mins

As Zagreb’s TMK 201 tram number 2 makes one of its final journeys through the city, a young couple faces a possible ending of their own.

Nela Gluhak uses the tram as both setting and emotional structure. The city continues moving while the relationship stalls somewhere between separation and an uncertain future.

Brief and restrained, 2 IN 2 captures the strange stillness of a conversation that may change everything.

A LOVE BREAKS DOWN

Imrane Rahani | Morocco | 13 mins

A married couple’s car breaks down on an isolated forest road. With nowhere to go and nothing left to distract them, the wife chooses the moment to dismantle their marriage.

Imrane Rahani reduces the drama to two people, one vehicle, and a confrontation neither can escape. The remote location strips away routine and politeness until the relationship has to be examined directly.

The breakdown is mechanical. The more serious failure has been developing for much longer.

LAND OF NO MAN

Muling Tzai and Olivia Lin | Taiwan | 4 mins

A solitary capybara lives peacefully with his closest companion, Mister Tangerine. His routine begins to change when a series of passing animals asks him the same question: “Aren’t you lonely?”

Crafted in 3D animation with handmade stop-motion elements, LAND OF NO MAN unfolds like a moving children’s picture book.

Its gentle surface carries a more complicated question about solitude, companionship, and whether loneliness begins inside us or through the expectations of other people.

PROLYOT

Tata Chkheidze | Georgia | 6m19s

A young woman corrects a mathematical equation written on the wall of an apartment-building elevator. The correction begins an anonymous correspondence with a stranger living only a few metres away.

Their messages continue without either person discovering the other’s identity, until an ordinary accident removes their final opportunity to meet.

Georgian director Tata Chkheidze turns a familiar shared space into a quiet story about chance, proximity, and all the people who pass through our lives without becoming fully visible.

NOTE: Special guest Tata will be joining us in person for the premiere of her short film. Meet the filmmaker and say hello 👋 🤗

THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE

Valerie Cappuccino Cocos | Thailand | 3 mins

Three short stories explore different forms of affection without using spoken dialogue.

Meaning emerges through gesture, physical distance, glances, hesitation, and the small actions through which people reveal what they cannot say directly.

THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE treats silence as its shared vocabulary, allowing intimacy to be understood without explanation.

THE LETTER

Alexandra Kurchikova | Netherlands | 8 mins

Bo begins another ordinary day delivering letters until she discovers an envelope addressed to her estranged father.

Drawn toward his home, she begins returning in the hope of reconnecting. Instead, she sees the new life he has built without her and has to confront the emotional distance between them.

Supported by her friend Noah and a new connection with a young handyman named Filip, Bo begins the difficult process of saying goodbye to one relationship and allowing another possibility to enter.

TODD & THE TOAD

Julia Mücke | Germany | 12 mins

Todd is anxious, socially avoidant, and increasingly alarmed by the prospect of meeting a woman he has been messaging online.

His search for a solution leads him toward a mysterious toad and an even more mysterious hallucinatory therapist named Juan Carlos, who insists on guiding Todd through a corrective emotional experience.

Julia Mücke turns romantic anxiety into a surreal comedy about vulnerability, avoidance, and the ridiculous lengths people sometimes take to escape an honest conversation.

It is strange, fast-moving, and unexpectedly sincere.

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.