Berlin NewGen 2026: Shorts Opening Night
Welcome to the opening night of the Berlin NewGen Film Festival 2026 short film programme! Join us for a double-feature screening that bridges grounded socio-political realities with uninhibited, boundary-pushing creativity.
Part 1: Weltschmerz: THE LIVES WE SPEND
(Run time: 71 mins)
★ This screening is part of the NewGen Short Film Main Competition section. Audiences will have the opportunity to vote for the Audience Award following the screening. ★
Work may organise the day, but life is spent in more ways than one. From driving schools and mines to a bedroom turned workplace, livestream studios, and racetracks, this section observes how repetition, pressure, and precarity shape the everyday. As labour intersects with migration, the question shifts: after making a life somewhere, what histories do we preserve, what marks of identity do we erase, and what can ultimately be neither kept nor carried away?
Featured Shorts:
JINCHENG DRIVING SCHOOL — Dir. JIAO Binghao
(Germany Premiere | 2025 | 10 mins | China | Animation)
I AM LI YANGQIAO — Dir. LIN Qian'ai, MA Yiqian, YIN Xihan, CHEN Zhiyan, LONG Junqi, PAN Ruizhe
(Germany Premiere | 2025 | 11 mins | China | Animation)
COLD CALLING — Dir. Yuzana Win
(Europe Premiere | 2025 | 13 mins | Myanmar | Narrative)
LOST IN STREAMS — Dir. DING Xiaokai
(World Premiere | 2026 | 12 mins | China | Narrative)
DAILY WORKER — Dir. SU Ting
(Germany Premiere | 2025 | 10 mins | United States / China | Documentary)
SWALLOW — Dir. LIU Zhibo
(World Premiere | 2025 | 15 mins | United States / China | Narrative)
Part 2: Special Screening — Most Trash Animation Festival (MTAF)
(Run time: ~30 mins)
Who gets to decide what counts as "good" animation?
Launched as a boundary-pushing experiment, the Most Trash Animation Festival (MTAF) suspends traditional standards of technical polish to showcase raw, uninhibited creativity. Having traveled through 28+ cities globally, MTAF turns traditional festival judging inside out—every film in this showcase has won an award somewhere, simply because someone, somewhere, loved it enough to say so.
MTAF Lineup:
XIAOGANG’S STORY 2 — Guangguang
COMMUNICATING WITH ALIENS — Ziy UE
TSK — Zeze
IT MUST BE MA LIANG AND HIS MAGIC BRUSH — Paiya Mouse King
BANANA — Michael Frei
DREAM FRUIT TRAIN... — V2 / Matsuzaka Ume
ONE-PUNCHING A FLEXING JERK — OLEE
THE WAY OF THE DOG-WOLF — gogo
WINTER’S GIFT — MAO Yingqi
THE DEAF LITTLE BIRD — L+L
SKETCHES FROM SPIRITED AWAY — YANG Huaxu
A TALE OF AN UPSET STOMACH... — Juliaaaaa
LIKE — Taikonot
A WORLD WHERE ODD NUMBERS EXIST — Maoji
MASTER — XIE Li
TENT — PAN Zhengqiang
CHARLIEKILLERS — Daoxuerenski