The online short-film market T-Port has announced its 2023 Lighthouse Selections, a premium collection of short films produced over the course of the past year, selected by industry experts Laurence Boyce (PÖFF, Short Film Conference) and Maike Mia Höhne (Berlinale, Hamburg Short Film Festival).

In detail, the collection of shorts spans nine countries of production and encompasses 13 languages. The diversity of these titles is reflected through the various styles of filmmaking - including drama, documentary, experimental and animated titles - making the cut and the 56% female/44% male gender split.

Films were submitted directly by independent filmmakers and by several prestigious film schools, including Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, the Steve Tisch School at Tel Aviv University and the Polish National Film School in Lodz, as well as film-distribution players such as Lights On, Festival Formula, German Films and Salaud Morisset.

The festival circuit is also well represented in the list, with several titles having made the cut at Locarno, Cannes, Tribeca and the Berlinale. “But not all of the films have been swept up yet, with some new treats yet to hit the circuit,” the official press release points out.

Speaking about his picks, Boyce said: “My Lighthouse selection for 2023 perhaps illustrates the many facets that I love about the medium of short film. Features tend to drift into the arena of the melodramatic... But life is often predicated on the small – those tiny moments that still shift the momentum of a life. Shorts shine a light on these occasions, and let us interrogate how they ripple with importance.”

Höhne further explained: “The filmmakers all work with different cinematic approaches and nurture our understanding of the other. The past as part of the present. The mighty future as a space to embrace.”

The collection will be launched officially in Turin, as part of the Torino Film Festival and the Talents and Short Film Market (TSFM). The Italian gathering will screen a sample of the full collection from 7-9 pm on Tuesday 29 November. At the TSFM, T-Port will also host a market screening of the full collection on Tuesday 28 November from 2.30 pm-4 pm and on Wednesday 29 November from 2.30 pm-4 pm.

The entire collection is available on T-Port Online Film Market, but in order to access the movies, registration is required. Users will be asked to list their credentials, as the collection is only available for industry professionals to view.

Initiated in 2017, T-Port is a non-profit platform aimed at promoting emerging talent and facilitating the distribution of shorts within the film industry. It currently hosts over 1,700 titles made by independent filmmakers and students, including award-winning films and festival hits.

T-Port is also an independent non-profit association based in Berlin, and backed by the Creative Europe - MEDIA programme and the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund.

The full list of selected shorts is below:

Selected by Maike Mia Höhne

Two Hours a Day - Maya Klar (Germany/Israel)
Summer Fling - Jasmin Preiß (Germany)
Intro - Anne Isensee (Germany)
The Waiting - Volker Schlecht (Germany)
Border Conversations - Jonathan Brunner (Germany)
There Are People in the Forest - Szymon Ruczyński (Poland)
YUGOTRANSPORT - We are all on the same bus - Boris Hadžija (Germany)
The Unicorn in Snowpants Suddenly Ran Off - Philipp Schaeffer (Germany)
Collage - Gülce Besen Dilek (Germany)
Girl No. 60427 - Shulamit Lifshitz (Israel)
Listen To My Voice - Zohar Orian Cohen (Israel)
Long Time No Techno - Eugenia Bakurin (Germany)
Handful of Dirt - Izabela Zubryckiej (Poland)
Requiem for a Whale - Ido Weisman (Israel)

Selected by Laurence Boyce

As If Mother Cried Tonight - Hoda Taheri (Germany)
FAR - Gunnur Martinsdóttir Schlüter (Iceland)
Novy God - Anat Eisenberg (Israel)
The Age of Innocence - Maximilian Bungarten (Germany)
The School Is on Fire and We Know Why - Janina Lutter (Germany)
Time Out - Rita Borodiyanski (Israel)
For People in Trouble - Alex Lawther (UK)
Slow Down the Fall - Camille Tricaud, Franziska Unger (Germany)
The Other End of the Street - Kálmán Nagy (Austria)
Chewing Gum - Dascha Petuchow (Germany)
A Tortoise’s Year of Fate - Yi Xiong (China)
A Day, That Year - Stanley Xu (Taiwan/Singapore)