High School Competition
Nearly two years have passed since the outbreak of the war, and the reality we live in remains deeply unsettling - caught between fracture and fear, between the search for certainty and a flicker of hope.The films selected for this year’s competition offer a sharp portrait of bold, young cinema - unflinching and provocative, unafraid to confront pain, loss, and anger, yet also choosing life, the personal, and the deeply human. Through the lens, these filmmakers strive to understand who they are and what their place is in this world.High school students - in the midst of forming their identities, on the cusp of a pivotal chapter in their lives - bring to the screen a voice that is clear, honest, and unmasked.They are not preoccupied with pleasing others or conforming, but rather with a pointed examination of themselves and the world around them. The High School Competition gives them a platform precisely now - at a time when public discourse seems to drift away from the personal, the uncertain, the questioning. Here are those who dare to place a question mark where the world demands exclamation points. The films presented are more than cinematic works - they are intimate, emotion documents of a generation raised between a pandemic and a war. A generation that came of age in an extreme and turbulent reality, one that denies them the very stability most needed at this stage of life. Amid all this, they are searching — not always for answers, but at the very least for the spaces where it’s still possible to ask.
Nearly two years have passed since the outbreak of the war, and the reality we live in remains deeply unsettling - caught between fracture and fear, between the search for certainty and a flicker of hope.The films selected for this year’s competition offer a sharp portrait of bold, young cinema - unflinching and provocative, unafraid to confront pain, loss, and anger, yet also choosing life, the personal, and the deeply human. Through the lens, these filmmakers strive to understand who they are and what their place is in this world.High school students - in the midst of forming their identities, on the cusp of a pivotal chapter in their lives - bring to the screen a voice that is clear, honest, and unmasked.They are not preoccupied with pleasing others or conforming, but rather with a pointed examination of themselves and the world around them. The High School Competition gives them a platform precisely now - at a time when public discourse seems to drift away from the personal, the uncertain, the questioning. Here are those who dare to place a question mark where the world demands exclamation points. The films presented are more than cinematic works - they are intimate, emotion documents of a generation raised between a pandemic and a war. A generation that came of age in an extreme and turbulent reality, one that denies them the very stability most needed at this stage of life. Amid all this, they are searching — not always for answers, but at the very least for the spaces where it’s still possible to ask.
