shnit TBILISI 2026: Worldwide Competition - International Short Films - Night 4

shnit TBILISI 2026: Worldwide Competition

20:30 Wednesday 26 August | Doors open from 19:30

WORLDWIDE COMPETITION sits at the centre of shnit TBILISI 2026, bringing together short films from Cambodia, Egypt, Ghana, Argentina, Russia, the United States, Australia, and Belgium.

The program moves between fiction, documentary, satire, social realism, online culture, historical drama, and dystopian image-making. A Western spy discovers that the local security guard refuses to remain a background character. An online sales performance begins to reveal a private reality its audience cannot see. A young Ghanaian miner looks back on a childhood spent underground. Two women cross the cold streets of Buenos Aires while one learns how to survive.

Elsewhere, a tiger and a goat form an unlikely friendship, a stranger becomes social-media content without his consent, modern life is placed behind glass, and a young bagpiper enters one of the defining battles of the First World War.

WORLDWIDE COMPETITION offers the clearest expression of shnit’s global program: films rooted in specific countries and experiences, placed together without flattening what makes each one different.

Eight films. Eight countries. 1h24m25s.

TICKETS

Adult: 22 GEL | Student: 15 GEL

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

WORLDWIDE COMPETITION PROGRAM

THE SENTRY

Jake Wachtel | Cambodia | 18 mins

In the misty Cambodian jungle, a polished Western spy begins what appears to be another routine mission. The operation goes off-script when one particularly stubborn security guard refuses to remain a minor character in somebody else’s adventure.

Jake Wachtel overturns the usual hierarchy of the spy film, shifting attention away from the glamorous foreign agent and toward the local man expected to stand quietly at the edge of the story.

The comedy comes from this reversal, but the film also asks who gets to occupy the centre of international cinema and who is normally treated as scenery.

THE SENTRY had its world premiere at SXSW in 2025 and later won Best International Film at Show Me Shorts.

SOUSOU’S TIKTOK

Sondos Shabayek | Egypt | 10 mins

Sara performs a cheerful online sales pitch, presenting creams, lingerie, and lip plumpers to an unseen TikTok audience.

As she struggles to maintain the bright rhythm of the livestream, another reality begins to emerge around her. The performance continues while signs of coercion and private violence become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Egyptian filmmaker Sondos Shabayek uses the familiar language of social media to examine what a screen reveals and what it allows an audience to overlook.

The violence remains outside the frame. Sara’s effort to keep smiling tells us enough.

FUTURE

Caleb Nii Odartey Aryee | Ghana | 8 mins

Future is 23 years old. He has already spent nine years inside Ghana’s illegal gold-mining industry, widely known as galamsey.

Looking back on the years he spent underground, he describes work that promised money but demanded childhood, health, and safety in return.

Director Caleb Nii Odartey Aryee grounds the film in the realities faced by young workers inside one of Ghana’s most urgent environmental and social crises.

FUTURE is a compact portrait of hazardous labour and of a young man carrying consequences far heavier than the gold he once pursued.

FROZEN HEELS

Felipe Wein | Argentina | 15 mins

On the coldest day of the year in central Buenos Aires, Celia begins learning how to work on the street.

Betty, older and more experienced, guides her through the first steps. Their movement across the city becomes an education in endurance, vulnerability, and the informal knowledge required to survive at its margins.

Felipe Wein contrasts the physical cold of the streets with the cautious solidarity developing between the two women.

FROZEN HEELS observes without romanticising. Its focus remains on the practical and emotional negotiations of people whose work is often discussed without allowing them to speak for themselves.

THERE ONCE WAS A TIGER

Marina Verik and Dmitry Mosyagin | Russia | 12 mins

A bored tiger and a playful goat form an extraordinary friendship inside a safari park in Russia’s Far East.

The film is based on the true story of Amur the tiger and Timur the goat, whose relationship became an international media story after they met at Primorsky Safari Park in 2015.

What should have been a brief encounter between predator and prey developed into something far less predictable.

THERE ONCE WAS A TIGER treats the story with warmth and humour while considering companionship, captivity, and the strange ways another living creature can change a familiar world.

SUBWAY CRUSH

Oriana Ng | United States | 3 mins

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

The encounter is brief, ordinary, and immediately transformed into content.

In under three minutes, Oriana Ng examines privacy, entitlement, and the speed with which online attention can turn a person into an image for public consumption.

SUBWAY CRUSH asks a simple question that social media often avoids: who owns an encounter once someone begins recording?

HUMAN ZOO

David Collier | Australia | 7 mins

HUMAN ZOO unfolds inside a world of glass, concrete, silence, and carefully controlled observation.

Ordinary life has been stripped of privacy and placed on display. The architecture feels polished and familiar, but every gesture suggests that something essential has disappeared.

David Collier builds the film primarily through composition and atmosphere rather than dialogue. Minimalist spaces become instruments of emotional isolation, creating a dystopian environment that feels uncomfortably close to the present.

The result is a visual study of surveillance, performance, and life lived under continuous observation.

SOUND OF THE SOMME

Michaël Vermaercke | Belgium | 13 mins

SOUND OF THE SOMME tells the true story of Private James Cleland Richardson, a 20-year-old Canadian soldier and bagpiper serving during the First World War.

Assigned to remain behind as a stretcher bearer, Richardson instead carried his bagpipes into the Battle of the Somme, playing as troops advanced through intense fighting.

His actions on 8 October 1916 earned him the Victoria Cross, awarded posthumously.

Michaël Vermaercke approaches the story through historical detail and immersive sound, placing music inside a landscape otherwise defined by machinery, command, and destruction.

The film closes the competition program with an account of courage expressed through sound rather than conventional military power.

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.