Skopje Sunset Film Festival 2025 — Official Winners

 Logline: December 2023. An acting troupe is going on tour with a play about Santa Claus to spread holiday cheer in the small towns of post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. While the children are delighted, the appearance of Santa Claus reignites old conflicts between the adults. 

 Logline: In a foreign land, 6-years old immigrant Amra loses her whole family. This happens only because of her human instinct to help a victim in need. 

Logline:  Several world-famous novel characters get lost in the fantastic world of The Script filled with mysterious pages and existential questions. 

Logline:   As Austro-Hungary teeters on collapse, Andras and his daughter are taken aback by the visit from Andras' brother, Zoltan, who comes accompanied by his large family. 

Logline: An original pixilation short about a woman whose entire   household gradually rebels against her during one sleepless night. Drawing   from her own experience, the author presents a tale full of absurd situations   that feel almost unbelievably familiar to anyone who has ever tried to juggle   household duties, work, and children all at once. This film is dedicated to   all mothers who work while on maternity or parental leave.

Logline: The absolute absurdity and meaninglessness of life are explored   in this dark piece set in a Greek mountain hotel, with a cast of unlikely   characters. At the centre of its enquiry into the absurd is a disenchanted   hotelier whose last concern is the management of his establishment. Rather,   he engages with his guests and staff as though they exist as proof of his   torment, each day repeating a series of eccentric and pointless actions. His   staff put up with his behaviour. Each guest that arrives at the Hotel Centaur   bears a particular existential burden. From the suicidal boy who reads Kafka   and watches his distracted parents dance, to the artist tormented by his   blank canvas, to the story’s most unexpected guest, a Japanese man who for   the past ten years – inexplicably – has written a polite weekly letter   enquiring after the mythical centaurs of the area, and wishes to be shown   these creatures. Each character searches, each search is shown to be absurd,   with the story culminating in a brutal tragedy that is fallout of a bad joke,   and the confirmation that life provides us with no easy answers.

Logline: One summer night, Mario knocks on the door of a house looking   for help. Elena looks through the peephole and discovers a desperate and   injured young man. She is determined to let him in, but her husband Santi   objects. What will happen if Mario comes into the house?

Logline: The discovery of their teachers dead body in front of the   classroom leads to an argument amongst the students about what to do with the   body

Logline: At the end of the world, there's yet another village where the   living live along with the dead, and dreams are more real than reality. An   allegorical fresco about love beyond the grave with poetics of magical   realism confronts the Nazis and communist past of the Slovak nation. The   grotesque stories of the “sluggish” family serve as a metaphor for archetypal   traits that remain unchanged for centuries. Somewhere in the hills of central   Slovakia three brothers live lost in time, dreams, naïveté and folly that blur   the boundaries between the real world and that of their late ancestors. The   only thing that conveys a sense to their futile lives is a cobweb of   tragicomic relationships with their fateful women undaunted to give their   lives for love.

Logline: After their boss disappears, wanted for murder, the staff of a   fading nightclub take part in a documentary that forces them to confront the   events of that fateful night.

Logline: Jana, a twelve-year-old, is on her summer holiday in a small   place by the dusty and noisy road, where her grandma and grandpa live. In   front of a local shop, Jana and her BFF Tea (12) eat ice cream, watching the   cars, trucks and boys passing by. The boredom is shattered by charming and   sun-tanned Miki, who invites them to the swimming pool.

Logline: Thriller set in the last   days of the First World War. In the last days of the Great War a reluctant   officer, forced into command, and an eager young soldier have their unlikely   bond tested under the onslaught of a German sharpshooter. Trapped on the   frontline, they must hold together a fracturing battalion, in order to hold   the line.

Logline: An all-star cast, high production value and a   "must-see" ending drive this incredible adaptation of the famous   short story "The Open Window" by H. H. Munro. A short film set in   1918, THE OPEN DOOR tells the story of Framton Nuttel who is sent to the   countryside by his physicians in order to calm his nerves. It is there he   meets a young girl, Mae, who begins to share the eerie secrets of this small town.

Logline: In a city where people consume cartoons, a dog reconciles with   its old friends, and together, they try to escape from humans.

Logline: Based on true events. In Cold War-era Romania, two Securitate   officers intercept a letter from former US president Richard Nixon to Nicolae   Ceausescu proposing a joint covert arrangement to finance Saddam Hussein and   the army of Iraq. With 48 hours to prepare for the arrival of CIA operatives,   the two agents race to determine the hidden agenda of the visit - and each   other..

Logline: My ЊУЈОРК [New York] is a short film about Macedonian immigrant   and a Trans woman who are newcomers to the city. Their chance encounter on a   fateful night might jeopardize their future but it will definitely change   their lives.

Logline: Pent up social aggression affects a young couple already plagued   by their internal problems.

Logline: In a tranquil village, Rusi, a lonely elderly widower, and his   neighbor Milko, a 'priest' with the heart and mind of a child, pass their   days fishing and bickering. Their quiet life is disrupted when a Turkish boy   and a Bulgarian girl, fleeing her father, seek their help to protect their   forbidden love and escape feuding families.

Logline: Cleaning & Cleansing traces an evocative, sensorial journey through ideas of cleanliness—from personal hygiene and psychological purification to the sanitization of spaces—while subtly invoking their darker historical echoes, including ethnic cleansing and racial hygiene. Eschewing interviews and narration, the film weaves together medical, aesthetic, spiritual, and biopolitical dimensions to reveal how the modern pursuit of optimization and improvement can quietly slip into its troubling opposite.

Logline: During the night, a teenage girl is taking a taxi ride to   the neighboring town. After a disturbing ride, and an even worse night at a   friend's birthday party, she is forced to return home with a menacing taxi   driver who insists on her sitting in the front seat next to him.