The 2025 deadCenter It’s a Mad, Mad World Shorts Feature Jarring and Succinct Stories
Art helps us make sense of the world. Especially when it goes to shit. The 2025 deadCenter It’s a Mad, Mad World Shorts harness the disarray and turn pain into poignance. Here’s how through seven powerful short films.
Deux Personnes échangeant de la Salive (Two People Exchanging Saliva)
In a society eerily close to ours, kissing gets people killed, and slaps represent money. Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh’s “Deux Personnes échangeant de la Salive” explores how two unlikely lovers, Malaise (Luàna Bajrami) and Angine (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), struggle to navigate an absurd, authoritative rule.
Like a close relative of Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster, “Deux Personnes” is as absurd as it is tragic. Quite possibly the “maddest” of these shorts, the film reveals how repression inevitably sparks liberation — no matter how fatal it may be.
Little Shrew (Snowflake)
In the wake of devastating drone strikes, a white shrew follows the last semblance of hope. In support of the War Child charity, “Little Shrew” is a beautiful, animated music video.
Living up to its designation as a short, Kate Bush’s film travels through the cosmos, the rubble of a destroyed city, and back to an ethereal space removed from suffering. “Little Shrew” isn’t just a reflection, but a desperate plea against the inhuman cost of conflict.
Future Is Panorama
With the threat of far-right terrorism looming, immigrant Siham (Amal Omran) knows her family’s lives exist under a constant threat. After her daughter calls her while trying to hide from an extremist gunman, Siham tries desperately to find and save her child.
Muschirf Shekh Zeyn’s “Future Is Panorama” is nothing short of a gut punch. In 15 short minutes, it masterfully explores everything from oppressive working conditions, antagonistic law enforcement, and stark apathy toward an ongoing refugee crisis.
Flight 182
In 1985 — almost two decades before 9/11 — over 300 people were killed over the Atlantic Ocean when Canadian Sikh terrorists detonated a bomb during a commercial flight. Rippin Sindher’s “Flight 182” tells the tragic story of a family caught in the crossfire.
Carried by powerful performances from Rippin Sindher and Sundeep Morrison, “Flight 182” reminds us that no one can escape the tendrils of violence. At the same time, it recounts a horrific event that was unfortunately overshadowed by subsequent acts of terror.
Ya Hanouni
At this point, the shorts block doesn’t get any easier to watch. Which is exactly what makes it necessary. In Lyna Tadount and Sofian Chouaib’s “Ya Hanouni,” two parents try to coax their baby into saying their first words. Unfortunately, their friendly game is cut short when an airstrike obliterates their apartment.
Despite the film’s shocking premise, it follows the lead of “Little Shrew,” championing hope while conveying the persistence of life.
En Memoria
Set in a future where defaulting on student loans could cost you the literal memory of your education, Roberto Fatal’s “En Memoria” contests that no matter how toxic a system is, it can’t truly take everything from you.
Leslie Martinez and Frédérique La Tour deliver moving, standout performances against an increasingly bleak backdrop. While by no means uplifting, “En Memoria” suggests that even if someone can delete your memories, they can never remove the impression they left.
Empty Your Pockets (جیب هایتان را خالی کنید)
Hassan (Kiarash Dadgar) has one of the least enviable jobs in the world: an airport customs officer. Tara Aghdashloo’s “Empty Your Pockets” reveals his average day on the job, which involves scrutinizing passengers, fielding their inevitable ire and begging his boss for an advance on his check to help support his sick mother.
The short film is sort of like a live-action adaptation of the 2013 video game, Papers, Please. It shows how innocent people and the employees who have to dissect them both struggle to do what’s right in a woefully unjust world. “Empty Your Pockets” also features a striking metaphor around parasites, comparing Hassan and his colleagues to ants that unknowingly serve a brain-eating fungus.
Find more deadCenter 2025 coverage like this at The Cinematropolis.
