shnit TBILISI 2026: Opening Night, Party + Short Films under the stars

shnit TBILISI 2026: OPENING NIGHT + PARTY

Saturday 22 August | Doors and opening party from 18:00 | Films at 20:45

shnit worldwide shortsfestival comes to Tbilisi for the first time, opening with a rooftop party on Saturday and seven international short films at FOMO Open-Air Cinema.

Opening Night introduces the range of the festival in just over an hour. The program moves between animation, online culture, historical drama, beauty standards, artistic failure, childhood imagination, and a pop singer who finds an unusual solution to his lack of rhythm.

There is no single genre holding the evening together. That is the point. shnit builds its programs through contrast, placing different countries, styles, and perspectives alongside one another until they begin to speak to each other.

Doors open at 18:00 for the festival opening party. Arrive early, order a drink, meet the local festival crowd, and watch the sun set over Tbilisi before the films begin at 21:00.

Seven films. Seven countries. 1h03m48s.

OPENING NIGHT PARTY + FILM PROGRAM

Includes admission to the rooftop opening party from 18:00 and the seven-film Opening Night program beginning at 21:00.

Adult: 28 GEL | Student: 23 GEL

OPENING PARTY ONLY

Includes admission to the rooftop opening party from 18:00.

Party-only ticket: 10 GEL

This ticket does not include admission to the film screening or cinema seating area. Party-only guests may remain in the designated bar and social areas during the film, subject to venue operations and rooftop noise restrictions.

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

The rooftop opens at 18:00, three hours before the screening.

Guests can join us for the full Opening Night party and screening, or purchase a 10 GEL party-only ticket and come for the music, drinks, sunset, and opening-night atmosphere.

[PLACEHOLDER: Add details explaining why the music is a major draw. Include the DJ or live act, their style, background, set time, and what guests can expect from the opening-party atmosphere.]

Further opening-party details will be announced through @fomo.cinema.

OPENING NIGHT PROGRAM

OSTRICH

Marie Kenov | Switzerland | 9 mins

A sparrow is exposed to images of ostriches everywhere it looks: posters, advertising, and the endless visual language of an ideal it cannot possibly become.

Marie Kenov turns modern beauty standards into a compact animated satire about comparison, aspiration, and the pressure to reshape yourself around images created by somebody else.

Funny, strange, and uncomfortably recognisable, OSTRICH begins the festival with a raised eyebrow.

DANCING PIGEONS

Christofer Nilsson | Sweden | 24 mins

Fredrik is a struggling pop singer with ambition, enthusiasm, and a fairly serious lack of rhythm. His solution is to reinvent himself as a travelling performer accompanied by dancing pigeons.

DANCING PIGEONS follows its protagonist into a world where failure, performance, and self-belief become difficult to separate. Christofer Nilsson treats Fredrik’s peculiar career with humour but without cruelty, creating a portrait of someone who refuses to accept that the world may not be waiting for his particular form of entertainment.

It is the longest film in the opening program and possibly the only one involving a choreographed pigeon act.

SUBWAY CRUSH

Oriana Ng | United States | 3 mins

An influencer notices an attractive stranger on the subway and begins filming him without his consent.

In less than three minutes, SUBWAY CRUSH turns an apparently harmless piece of social-media content into a direct question about privacy, entitlement, and the way online attention can transform a real person into material.

The film is brief. The implications are not.

SOUND OF THE SOMME

Michaël Vermaercke | Belgium | 13 mins

SOUND OF THE SOMME recounts the true story of Private James Cleland Richardson, a young Canadian soldier and bagpiper who served during the First World War.

Richardson’s actions during the Battle of the Somme became part of Canadian military history, but Michaël Vermaercke approaches the story through sound, memory, and the strange position of music inside a landscape of war.

The film shifts the opening program into historical territory, examining courage without turning conflict into spectacle.

FIREWORKS

Jianfeng Huo | China | 2m20s

An orphaned child survives by collecting discarded plastic in a poor neighbourhood. Inside his makeshift home, the objects around him begin to offer a form of escape.

FIREWORKS creates a complete emotional world in a little over two minutes. Jianfeng Huo uses childhood imagination to place beauty and hardship inside the same frame, without reducing either one to sentiment.

A FRIEND OF OURS

François Rabes and Félicie Dutertre | France | 9 mins

A film crew sets out to complete a project. Plans are made. Confidence is high. Reality has other ideas.

A FRIEND OF OURS draws its comedy from the unpredictable mechanics of filmmaking, where determination, logistics, ego, and chance have to coexist whether anyone likes it or not.

The result is an affectionate account of creative ambition collapsing in public.

BRAVE NEW PAST

Erik Schmitt | Germany | 5 mins

What begins as a nostalgic reconstruction of a Super 8 home movie gradually shifts into something less stable.

Writer-director Erik Schmitt uses analogue texture, editing, and visual invention to question how memories are rebuilt once the original moment has disappeared. The film moves between personal archive and fabrication, asking how much of the past we remember and how much we quietly direct.

BRAVE NEW PAST closes the opening selection by looking backward through a medium built to preserve what time keeps changing.

ABOUT THE OPENING PARTY

The rooftop opens at 18:00, three hours before the screening.

Further opening-party details will be announced through @fomo.cinema.

Guests are encouraged to arrive early. The film program begins promptly at 21:00.

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.