From December 2025 to May 2026, our pre-selection committee reviewed 1454 short films that were submitted through Short Film Depot and Filmfreeway. After months of deliberation, 202 titles from 60 countries were chosen for screening and consideration in the 2026 International Competition Awards.
The National Competition winners were selected from Indonesian productions featured in the festival. Eligible films must hold Bali Premiere status, with entries coming from both international submission platforms and the Indonesia Raja network.
Begadang Filmmaking Competition challenges participants to develop their ideas, write the script, shoot, edit, and make their own music scoring. Produce and submit a short film all within a tight schedule of 34 hours.
There were 50 production groups registered this year and 31 succeeded in meeting the deadline for the competition.
All winners (including all the Non-Monetary Award winners) also receive a free of two-week artist accommodation offer at MASH Denpasar artist residency, in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. Accommodation for 2026 Award Winners must be booked between 1 November 2026 until 30 April 2027 only.
CASH PRIZE AWARDS
One winner of MFW Best Short Film of the Year Award 2026 will get Rp. 5.000.000,- (Five Million Rupiah) cash prize.
One winner for each category below will get Rp 1.000.000,- (One Million Rupiah) cash prize;
MFW Best Children Short Award 2026
MFW Best Fiction Short Award 2026
MFW Best Documentary Short Award 2026
MFW Best Animation Short Award 2026
MFW Best Experimental Short Award 2026
One winner of the National Competition Award 2026 will get Rp. 5.000.000,- (Five million Rupiah) cash prize.
The programming team and program director recommends these winners, and then given to the 2026 Jury Board members to be previewed. The festival committee has made the final decision based on the recommendations of the 2026 Jury Board deliberation meetings.
We all agreed that this film was flawless in every sense of the word. The strength of the script, the sensitive direction, the powerful characters and the remarkable performances all came together beautifully. Captivating from beginning to end, it is a compelling piece of cinematic storytelling whose resonance extends far beyond the film itself, especially considering the legal and social repression that still persists today in Lebanon and in many other countries. In many ways, it’s a political film that never actually talks about politics, and we are proud to support greater acceptance of gender and sexual diversity by awarding the Best Short Film of the Year to BIRTHMARK, byGeorge Peter Barbari.
Gie Sanjaya, Melissa Bouchard, Patrick F. Campos
International Jury Board 2026
BIRTHMARK
[d] George Peter Barbari / [w] George Peter Barbari, Christelle Younes Lebanon, France, Croatia / 2026 / Fiction / 20:45
A woman makes her way to a sex worker to discover something about her world, about herself.
[ig] @birthmark_bygeorgepeterbarbari @btrswtpictures @georgesfilms @thisisvertigo_ @lalunaproductions_
MFW BEST NATIONAL COMPETITION AWARD 2026
For bringing Jakarta in 1998 and Gwangju in 1980 into a resonant dialogue,LAST MAY IN THEATERStransforms the movie theater into a site where ordinary labor, political upheaval, archival memory, and the recurring patterns of state violence converge across two national histories. Through its deft interweaving of testimony, media fragments, and the everyday lives of cinema workers, the film offers a perspective on history that moves beyond its iconic figures and major events. It reminds us that history does not belong to its heroes alone; it also lives in the memories of ordinary people who endured, survived, and carried those memories forward. By connecting personal experience with collective memory, the film demonstrates how cinema can become a space for remembering, questioning, and re-experiencing history across places and generations. For these reasons, the Best National Competition Award goes to LAST MAY IN THEATERS by Arief Budiman.
Gie Sanjaya, Melissa Bouchard, Patrick F. Campos
International Jury Board 2026
LAST MAY IN THEATERS
[d] Arief Budiman Indonesia, South Korea / 2025 / Experimental / 22:58
Story of the daily lives of two ticketing cinema staff during 2 incidents that sparked the birth of democracy in Jakarta & Gwangju
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Awards/Screenings: DMZ International Documentary Film Festival, 2025, Grand Prize Short-Korean | Visions du Reel, 2026
[ig] @keariefan
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MFW12 NATIONAL COMPETITION AWARD 2026
SPECIAL MENTION
For its sensorial and formally adventurous exploration of the afterlife, where image, sound, place, and body loosen the boundaries between the material and the spiritual, the film recasts the meaning of death and, in so doing, recasts what it means to live in the present. For turning a metaphysical passage into a journey of cinematic epiphany, a liberation of the mind through image and imagination, the jury has decided to give a Special Mention to AIR PANGEA by Adam Hasyim Al Raschid.
Gie Sanjaya, Melissa Bouchard, Patrick F. Campos
International Jury Board 2026
AIR PANGEA
[d] Adam Hasyim Al Raschid Indonesia / 2026 / Fiction / 13:12
Air Pangea is the exploration, experimentation and imagination of one’s soul and its journey in the afterlife.
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[ig] @lombokboy @feralnomadfactory
MFW12 BEST ANIMATION SHORT
This film came as a real surprise. It may take a few minutes to get into its chaotic and unconventional world, but once you embrace its unique style, you’re completely drawn in. We especially loved the contrast between the childlike drawings and the harsh story, heavy with meaning and consequences. The film directly confronts toxic masculinity by showing us exactly what not to become in order to be a man. For its originality and the importance of its underlying message, we’ve decided to give the Best Animated Short Award to SO HE GRABBED THE KNIFE.
Gie Sanjaya, Melissa Bouchard, Patrick F. Campos
International Jury Board 2026
SO HE GRABBED THE KNIFE (そしてナイフを手にした)
[d] Sam KUWA Japan, China / 2026 / Animation / 12:16
The boy takes the knife his father once gave him. Did what followed make him a “man”?
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Awards/Screenings: Annecy International Animation Film Festival | Animafest Zagreb
[ig] @sam.kuwa
MFW12 BEST AUDIO VISUAL EXPERIMENTAL SHORT
Through its striking experimentation with animated archival drawings, layered sound design, electronic textures, native instrumentation, and the living force of yoik, or age-old Sámi vocal practice, the film transforms catastrophic colonial histories of violence and displacement into a sensorial encounter with memory and presence. For refusing the outsider’s expectation that Indigenous art belongs to the past, and for asserting it instead as radically contemporary, alive in the present and inventive as a form, the Best Experimental Short is VUOIŊŊAT [VOO-oyng-nyaht], or Spirits, by Marja Viitahuhta.
Gie Sanjaya, Melissa Bouchard, Patrick F. Campos
International Jury Board 2026
VUOIŊŊAT (Spirits)
[d] Marja Viitahuhta / [w] Marja Viitahuhta, Ánnámáret, Ilkka Heinonen, Turkka Inkilä Finland / 2025 / Experimental / 04:30
Animated archive northern light drawings and the yoiking of wandering, homeless spirits due to grave robberies.
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Awards/Screenings: Best Nordic Art Film Award at the Minimalen Film Festival, Trondheim, Norway, 2026 | Docpoint IDFF, Helsinki, Finland, 2026
[ig] @viitahuhta @annamaret
MFW12 BEST CHILDREN SHORT
TUTTI stood out to us for its clarity of cinematic language and its meaningful exploration of friendship, empathy, and mutual support. Rather than treating music merely as a subject, the film uses it as a language of connection, showing how relationships can become a space for learning, resilience, and growth. Its accessible form allows children to engage directly with the narrative, while its emotional and social message extends beyond childhood. For us, TUTTI demonstrates how children’s cinema can be simple in form, yet thoughtful and resonant in meaning. For these reasons, the jury selected TUTTI by Zhuang Rong-Zuo as the Best Children’s Short Film.
A struggling recorder player meets a boy who wants to quit. Practicing together, they discover growth beyond music.
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Awards/Screenings: 2026 Berlinale Generation Kplus | Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg – Mo&Friese – Children Jury’s Special Mention
[ig] @zhuangrongzuo @me_is_pork
MFW12 BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
For making documentary itself embody the movements of grief, jumping across time, yearning for the past, seeking release, and opening unexpectedly onto fleeting moments of precious joy, the film turns memories into the very form of lived duration. For editing that seems almost to disappear as it deftly and sensitively combs through hours of home movies, allowing small gestures and wondrous faces still innocent of a tragic future to shine and remind us of how today is golden, the Best Documentary is OUR BIRTHDAYS by Angeline Teh.
Gie Sanjaya, Melissa Bouchard, Patrick F. Campos
International Jury Board 2026
OUR BIRTHDAYS (Nos Anniversaires)
[d] Angeline Teh Malaysia, Belgium / 2025 / Documentary / 22:00
A Belgian family navigates silence and loss as memories blur with reality in a tender reflection on love and grief.
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Awards/Screenings: Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival 2026
[ig] @angeline.tyh
MFW12 BEST FICTION SHORT
It’s so refreshing to see a story about a woman taking back control of her own life, rather than following the standards imposed by society. We want to recognize the director’s courage in exploring motherhood from a perspective that is still considered taboo, breaking away from the usual codes and stereotypes surrounding what it means to be a mother. The film is filled with powerful and unforgettable scenes, supported by excellent direction and two fantastic actresses, and topped off by a brilliant ending that is exhilarating, inspiring, and just badass enough! The Best Fiction Award goes to the amazing BUAH
A pregnant woman’s repeated attempts to end her pregnancy fail until she crosses paths with a strange bus driver.
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Awards/Screenings: Sundance Film Festival 2026 | 48th Clermont-Ferrand ISFF 2026 (International Special Jury Prize)
[ig] @jenneelim
YOUTH JURY AWARD 2026
So much of what defines today’s youth is their experience growing up with the social internet—how chatrooms, blogs, and vlogs have all played major roles in shaping our perception and understanding of today’s world. “Abortion Party” beautifully captures that experience of connecting with an online stranger, through its playful mixture of low-poly animated forms and low-resolution webcam footage, featuring a delightful performance of ironic detachment from writer-director Julia Mellen. Beyond its nostalgic aesthetic and deceptively simple surface lies a cutting deconstruction of what short films can do to facilitate the opening of one’s heart and ears to another. It is also a powerful elegy to the loss of rights experienced by young women all over the world; a universal loss all too familiar for those who can only bear witness to the political indifference of adults, whose rule inevitably treads upon the innocence of children bound to inherit a seemingly ever crueler world. A work that, with unflinching candor, gives voice to the young.
Audie, Tyas, Hilmi, Rara
Youth Jury Board 2026
ABORTION PARTY
[d][w] Julia Mellen Spain / 2025 / Animation / 13:18
An abortion party thrown in south side Chicago in 2018.
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Awards/Screenings: FID Marseille, France (2025) | Vancouver International Film Festival (2025)
[ig] @lugubria8
BEGADANG 10 TAHUN FILMMAKING COMPETITION 2026 WINNER
Combining fairytales, monologues, archive clips, and moments of stillness, everything is woven together with such deep sincerity that it turns into poetic cinema. Rather than just ticking off three mandatory elements in Begadang Filmmaking Competition, the film transforms them into its own unique language, telling its story in a captivating way.
Two fables clash near the fire. Through layers of monologues and a tapestry of archives, Image traces the resilience of an eternal wait.
[ig] @walrus.films
THE SAMANSA AWARD AT MFW12
It was a distinctive film that captures a family’s entire life story through scenes of them sharing meals, filmed from above at the dining table, where the strongest sense of ‘family’ comes through. At first, I questioned the unusual choice to show only the tops of the characters’ heads, as it made me feel a little uneasy. But by the very end, the film helped me understand why this approach was so effective. It was a wonderful film where a warm story and distinctive cinematography worked beautifully together.
Takayuki Toyama
SAMANSA CEO
CIAK, CIAK, CIAK
[d] Kathleen Tio [w] Kathleen Tio, Aaron Pratama Jakarta / 2025 / Fiction / 10:15
Feli goes through many phases of life to understand her father from eating together on the dining table.
[ig] @kathleent___
MFW12 STAFF PICK
Selected from three nominations curated by the programming team, this year’s Staff Pick was screened for the entire MFW12 crew and volunteers. Following a vote by ballot, the award goes to FAMILY SUNDAY (DOMINGO FAMILIAR) by Gerardo Del Razo.
Family Sunday stands out as the winner for its brilliant fusion of technical ambition and profound thematic resonance. Shot in a single continuous take from a realistic apartment courtyard view, the film masterfully builds sustained tension, turning the audience into helpless witnesses as it lays bare the harsh, normalized realities of everyday crime. Its organic performances, cinematic tone, and surreal yet observational pacing make the story feel intensely real and deeply gripping. Beyond its impressive filmmaking achievement, the film creates a chillingly relatable experience that echoes global societal anxieties, leaving a haunting and unforgettable impression. impression.
Staff Pick
MFW12
FAMILY SUNDAY (Domingo familiar)
[d] Gerardo Del Razo [w] Gerardo Del Razo, Heriberto Mojica Mexico / 2025 / Fiction / 17:59
In a forgotten housing unit two scheming scoundrels attempt to extort local merchants but the fed-up neighbors unite to fight back.
Awards/Screenings: PÖFF Shorts Black Nights Film Festival, Leeds International Film Festival, Louis le prince International Shorts.
