Catch up on last year’s Sundance Film Festival from the comfort of your home. As the festival announced its 2026 short film winners on 27 January in Park City, Utah, a handpicked selection of short films from the 2025 Sundance lineup is streaming for free via Festival Scope, giving audiences in the Philippines access from 22 January to 22 February 2026. Tickets are limited.
Leading the selection are two Sundance award winners. Theo Panagopoulos’ The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing, which received the Grand Jury Prize for Short Film, reclaims rarely seen archival footage of Palestinian wildflowers, interrogating the power of images in relation to land, memory, and displacement.
Christopher Radcliff’s We Were the Scenery, winner of the Short Film Jury Award for Nonfiction, revisits the account of Vietnamese refugees who, after fleeing by boat in 1975, were used as background extras in Apocalypse Now upon arriving in the Philippines.
The lineup spans narrative, documentary, animation, and experimental works. A Weekend with Azi by U.S. director Montana Mann follows an Iranian-American teenager whose weekend vacation with her best friend’s family develops into a tense social interaction. Switzerland’s Caries, directed by Aline Höchli, is an animated short set inside a human mouth, where a shaman travels through teeth in search of paint while contending with toothpaste storms and a looming television broadcast.
From Algeria and France, Deadlock by Mahdi Boucif and Lucien Beucher centers on two 17-year-old boys from Algiers, both with older brothers who fled to Europe, as they face uncertainty about their own futures. In Death Education, Chinese filmmaker Yuxuan Ethan Wu documents a high school class that introduces students to discussions of mortality, observed during Tomb Sweeping Day at a public cemetery.
Alex Thompson’s U.S. short Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting is set in the 1930s and uses allegory to examine the relationship between mothers and daughters. Another U.S. entry, Field Recording by Quinne Larsen, presents a brief work built around three dreams. Canada’s Inkwo for When the Starving Return, directed by Amanda Strong, is set in the future and follows a young warrior beginning to understand the responsibilities tied to inherited Indigenous medicine.
From Cuba, Miss You Perdularia by Manu Zilveti depicts a group of high school girls dealing with absence on the island. Ragamuffin, directed by Kaitlyn Mikayla, follows a 12-year-old motocross rider spending a race weekend with her father while confronting questions of identity. Taiwan’s Suo Jiang by Chien-Yu Lin focuses on a locksmith who can open any lock but refuses to return home.
In Susana, directed by Gerardo Coello Escalante, a middle-aged American tourist finds herself alone in Mexico City and briefly connects with younger Americans. Sweet Talkin’ Guy by Dylan and Spencer Wardwell examines dating and masculinity through the experiences of a trans woman going on a series of dates with straight men. Tiger, directed by Loren Waters, documents Indigenous artist Dana Tiger, her family, and the return of the Tiger T-shirt company.
View from the Floor, directed by Mindie Lind, uses memoir and animation to address disability, performance, and media portrayal. In Unholy, Daisy Friedman follows a young adult attending a family Passover dinner while managing medical limitations that affect eating. We’re Not Done Yet by Sofia Camargo and Joseph Longo focuses on a son visiting his newly single mother and confronting his own controlling behavior.
All 18 films in the handpicked Sundance Film Festival short film selection are available free of charge on Festival Scope.com for the duration of the streaming period.