Beneath the Mask

Beneath the Mask

Διεθνές Διαγωνιστικό Ταινιών Βίντεο Αρτ / International Video Art Film Competition
Pierre Ajavon
3
France
2026
The film unfolds in the fragile space between presence and concealment. The mask is not a face, but a threshold, a surface that hides as much as it reveals. Textures and shapes appear, fade, blur, and reform. The music, built from muted pulses, breaths, and resonant vibrations, amplifies this game of hide and seek, guiding the eye toward what emerges only to vanish again. A shifting dialogue between image, matter, and breath.
Pierre Ajavon (b. 1966, Paris) is a visual artist, composer & musician. He lives and works in Paris (France). Ajavon studied sociology and ethnomusicology with a particular focus on psychedelic culture, and he embraced video art as his main medium as it allowed him to combine image with sound. His works appeared at art institutions such as LACDA (Los Angeles), Fondazione Ragghianti (Italy), Royal Scottish Academy (Scotland), Pereira Art Museum (Colombia) and The Wrong Biennale of Digital Arts 2023-2024 as well as events like the Festival Internacional de la Imagen (Colombia), Experimenta (Portugal), Cairotronica (Egypt), AIDFF (Greece) and MADATAC (Spain). Pierre Ajavon is also a musician and composer, and references to psychoanalysis and surrealism as well as the study of the relationship between pop imagery and sound constitute the backbone of his artistic practice.
Between the Worlds

Between the Worlds

Διεθνές Διαγωνιστικό Ταινιών Βίντεο Αρτ / International Video Art Film Competition
-
6
-
-
Cherubic Hymn is an AI-assisted visual meditation on Mokranjac’s sacred choral music. Through dreamlike, icon-inspired images of prayer, light, birds and human stillness, the film invites us to “lay aside all earthly cares” and enter the mystery of the Divine Liturgy. All vocal parts are performed by Sandra Dundjerski.
DEATH DISCO 69 - music video for Cadet A

DEATH DISCO 69 - music video for Cadet A

Διεθνές Διαγωνιστικό Ταινιών Βίντεο Αρτ / International Video Art Film Competition
Shana Nielsen
3
United States
2026
A haunting dark angel stalks frontman Axel through a vintage car chase and a feverish motorcycle flight. Rising from the ashes of a fiery crash, he realizes his relentless pursuer is actually his savior.
Shana Nielsen is an award-winning AI director and motion designer leading the AI Creative Lab at ATTN, where she develops AI creative workflows, trains teams, and prototypes next-generation storytelling formats. Her recent AI films and music videos have won multiple awards and screened in New York, Los Angeles, and the UK. Her broader creative work spans clients including HBO, Showtime, Google, Amazon, Apple, Sony, and Nickelodeon, with talent such as Zooey Deschanel, Busta Rhymes, Lil Yachty, Druski, and Criss Angel. Her work has received Emmy nominations, Clios, Webbys, D&AD and One Show Pencil awards, Shorty Awards, and PromaxBDA honors across entertainment, music, sports, and brand campaigns.
Gold!

Gold!

Διεθνές Διαγωνιστικό Ταινιών Βίντεο Αρτ / International Video Art Film Competition
Gerard Grau
10
Spain
2026
The discovery of a rather unusual treasure sets off a strange chain of greed and violence, revealing just how far a man is willing to go for gold.
Gerard Grau is a 20-year-old Spanish writer, screenwriter, and film director interested in exploring all the possibilities that cinema has to offer.
ISTERICA

ISTERICA

Διεθνές Διαγωνιστικό Ταινιών Βίντεο Αρτ / International Video Art Film Competition
Desirèe Tintori
15
Italy
2026
ISTERICA is a radical biopolitical video-art performance that weaponizes institutional critique against the contemporary art market. Reclaiming the ancient etymology of the "vacant womb," the film stages an uncompromising manufacturing line where queer bodies are processed as raw materials, forced to endlessly recycle internal trauma into art pieces. Through a severe formal grammar of rigid zenithal angles and claustrophobic macro-close-ups, the somatic expression of the performers is stripped of narrative empathy, turning flesh, organic matter, and industrial metal into site-specific sculptures. The structural urgency of the piece is reinforced by an innovative, generative acoustic architecture. The entire soundscape was captured live using contact microphones embedded inside a physical metallic prosthesis; a dedicated router channeled these raw bodily frictions into an Ableton system that restricted raw noise into a rigid modal scale. The resulting audio acts as a literal sonic prison, echoing the systemic enclosure of the bodies. ISTERICA stands as a crucial, urgent inquiry into media syntax, somatic resistance, and the predatory economics of cultural spaces.
Desirèe Tintori (DESIRA) is an Italian multidisciplinary artist working between experimental film, performance and sound. Their work develops long-term projects in which the body becomes a site of ritual, political inquiry and material transformation. Recent works (AMARA & PEARL) have been screened internationally, including at the Video Art & Experimental Film Festival (New York), and in London and Italy.
Rewriting a Memory and Different Rooms

Rewriting a Memory and Different Rooms

Διεθνές Διαγωνιστικό Ταινιών Βίντεο Αρτ / International Video Art Film Competition
Anna Persson
4
Sweden
2023
"Rewriting a Memory and Different Rooms" portrays an elderly man looking back on his life. He uses a pair of pencils as conductor's batons, directing large, drawn memory images that are erased and replaced by new ones. It is as if the aging man is creating the crescendo of his life before entering another world. He is in the gap between real memories, where sometimes only fragments remain, and fictional memories.
Anna Persson is a Swedish artist based in Partille, a town near Gothenburg, Sweden. She studied at the Valand Academy of Art in Gothenburg from 1992 to 1997. Anna’s work is exhibited regularly, and she explores various techniques and materials. In recent years, she has primarily focused on film installations and drawings.
The Three Stages of Loneliness

The Three Stages of Loneliness

Διεθνές Διαγωνιστικό Ταινιών Βίντεο Αρτ / International Video Art Film Competition
Luojia GAN
2
China
2026
"Follow Dingdang to Learn Chinese Poems" is a series of AIGC-animated short videos dedicated to disseminating the essence of traditional Chinese culture. It employs elements such as ink wash animation, traditional opera music, and Chinese calligraphy—all featuring distinctive ethnic characteristics—to spread classical Chinese poetry and historical stories. Created collaboratively by Dingdang and her father, the production integrates various AI tools including Kuaishou Kling, DeepSeek, and MuseAI. Since its release both domestically and internationally, the series has garnered high view counts and positive social feedback. "Follow Dingdang to Learn Chinese Poems—The Three Stages of Loneliness " is based on 3 different works of ancient China.
Associate Research Professor of CUC (Communication University of China) Member of CTAA (China Television Artists Association)
Track 8

Track 8

Διεθνές Διαγωνιστικό Ταινιών Βίντεο Αρτ / International Video Art Film Competition
Yasmina Chavanne
8
France
2026
In a flooded subway, a young woman drifts through hallucinatory visions before helping her mute, fragile mother perform a simple task: buying a metro ticket. Track 8 is a visceral descent into the opaque silence of illness and the inherited trauma that binds a mother and daughter
Yasmina Chavanne is a French artist, production designer and video artist exploring the sensory interplay between space, image and sound. She directed the experimental films Track 8, Venus and I feel disconnected from my emotions (2026). As a production designer, she has developed a distinctive visual language across feature films including Wild Foxes (Valéry Carnoy, Directors’ Fortnight, Cannes 2025) and Paula (Angela Ottobah, 2023). Track 8 is her first film as a director.
Vision

Vision

Διεθνές Διαγωνιστικό Ταινιών Βίντεο Αρτ / International Video Art Film Competition
Susanne Layla Petersen
4
Denmark
2025
"Vision" reflects on the influence of AI. Created in dialogue and collaboration with AI. AI tools used: OpenAI’s ChatGPT for dialogue and code generation, Runway for image and video generation. Images uploaded to Runway were my own copyright.
Susanne Layla Petersen is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her works include video, digital art, AI art, collaborative installations, NFTs, web projects, photography, texts and sound. Petersen's works have been screened and exhibited at Sleepy Eyes Film Festival (NL), On Art Film Festival (PL), Edmonton Underground Film Festival (CA), FilmArte Festival (DE), CICA Museum (KR), Physics on Film (UK), Simultan Festival (RO), XOR Space, VASTLAB Experimental (US), LA Art Show (US), ICME AIART Gallery (FR), GOSIM Hangzhou (CN), DELETE TV (UK/AT), Venice Open Art (IT), ArtX Gallery (US), Intervals Festival (RU), The Wrong Biennale, London's Crypt Gallery St Pancras (UK) and elsewhere.
FaLang translation system by Faboba