Overview

• Year2026
• Premiere statusVarious
• LanguageVarious

A selection of the very best short films submitted to Grimmfest for 2026.

This selection of films deal with themes of haunting and possession, be it literal, psychological, symbolic, or metaphorical.

MAREK (France, 14 min 37 sec)

Director: Vincent Casiro , Producers: Vincent Casiro, Writer: Vincent Casiro, Cinematographer: Mangua Diallo, Editor: Gabin Grislain, Music: Timothée Le Marchand, Cast: Timothée Blanche 

A sound engineer receives a threatening call and spirals into paranoia.

An absolute masterclass in the use of sound and enclosed space to convey an escalating sense of paranoia, panic, and alienation, as an obsessive sound engineer’s agoraphobia is pushed into dangerous and self-destructive levels, following a phonecall which might in reality be a manifestation of his own illness. 

FOLLICLES (USA, 15 min 35 sec)

Director: Daniel J. Egbert , Producers: Dany Zambrano Fernandez, Natasha Borchakovskaia, Daniel J. Egbert, Writer: Daniel J. Egbert , Cinematographer: Bella Finn Parisot, Editor: Ben Guangping Niu, Music: Joe Johnson, Cast: Costanza Andrade, Kyla Diane Kennedy.

A trip to the desert to spread mother’s ashes unearths an ancient infestation.

An eerie, enigmatic study of a relationship breaking down in the wake of a bereavement, and a truly chilling exploration of the theme of the doppelganger that is all the more unsettling for its refusal to explain or contextualise.

THE VISITOR  (USA, 9 min 33 sec)

Director: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard, Writers: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard, Emily Pazik   , Cinematographer: Michael Parella, Editor: Mateo Marquez, Cast: Emily Pazik, Shannon Bane, Georgia Kate Haege.

A failing actress is haunted by a silent double that seems intent on taking her place—forcing her to confront what it means to be seen, remembered, or erased.

A disquieting meditation on the rise of AI and its impact on the creative industries, taking inspiration perhaps from the recent furore in Hollywood over actors being encouraged to allow their likeness to be signed over, to become, almost, the property of the studios, to be exploited in CGI / AI form, this offers a chilling updating of both the haunted house scenario, and such classic Hollywood narratives as ALL ABOUT EVE, as the actor protagonist finds herself stalked by a sinister alter ego “Other”; quite literally a Ghost From The Machine. 

NOT JUST ME (Australia, 10 min 42 sec)

Director: Brendan Hennessy , Producer: Matt Jolly , Writer: Brendan Hennessy , Cinematographer: Wilson Huang, Editor: James Lee, Music: Matthew Hadley, Cast: Callum Jean-Thomas Paige E. Joustra Clare Pickering Tim Clarke 

A young couple attend a family dinner where no one dare speaks the truth.

Combining ghost story and psychological thriller this is a sensitively played, intelligent, eerie and very moving study of the social awkwardness around grief and bereavement, the way in which a sense of guilt, as well as loss, infects an entire family, making all family events, ever after, heavy with the weight of past regret. 

FANTASMAS (Spain, 14 min 44 sec)

Director: Dennis Routledge-Tizzard, Producers: Dennis Routledge-Tizzard, Jefri Carbó, Writer: Dennis Routledge-Tizzard, Cinematographer: Zach Rogers, Editor: Dennis Routledge-Tizzard, Music: Blaž Babnik, Cast: Alba Lorca, Santi Bosch, Sergi Sala 

When a couple’s rent goes up they’re forced to find somewhere else to live. They finally find the perfect place, but there’s just one catch: the room they’re not allowed to go in. What would you ignore for decent rent?

Inspired by the current Barcelona housing crisis, and the resulting rentier landlord opportunism, this sets itself up as a locked room ghost story, only for a final, far more disturbing reveal as to what is actually going on. It’s a powerful piece of socio-political horror, subtly played and sharply observed, with an excellent use of sound and space, all building to a quietly nightmarish climax, all the more disturbing for its all too real plausibility.

TINY COFFIN (Sweden, 15 min)

Director: Albin Glasell, Producer: Emma Nordström, Writer: Agnes Gester, Cinematographer: Erik Engbo, Editor: Erik Engbo, Music: Elin Hedberg, Cast: Jesper Gester, Lovis Änglykke, Ingeborg Engø

After losing his young daughter in a car accident, a desperate father tries to make things right, but finds himself in a dilemma when the line between life and death is blurred.
A genuinely nightmarish and unexpectedly moving exploration of grief and corrosive guilt, in which a father’s inability to accept his young daughter’s death and his own part in it results in her unexpected return in a more… malign form. Reminiscent of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN in the combination of traditional horror tropes with a complex emotional study, this is horrifying, haunting, and ultimately heartbreaking.

DUVET (UK, 13 min 24 sec) [TBC]

Director: Bel Parker, Producers: Abigail Coniah / The Big House, Writer: James Fritz, Cinematographer: Ben Safer, Editor: Frederik Ribergaard, Music: Vanessa Fitchett, Cast: Tee Odom

It takes on average seven attempts before a woman in an abusive relationship is able to leave for good…

An extended genre-based metaphor for being trapped in an abusive relationship, in which the duvet of the title becomes the embodiment of the familiar and “comfortable”, this is a beautifully played, darkly funny, and ultimately empowering and uplifting combination of social drama and absurdist imagery, conveying its message with wit, panache, and a real flair for the grotesque. 

WHEN SHE SINGS (UK, 24 min 59 sec)

Director: Paul Holbrook , Producers: Andrew Oldbury Oliver Kendall , Writer: Paul Holbrook Laura Bayston , Cinematographer: James Oldham, Editor: Ben Williams-Butt, Music: Hoarfrost Music, Cast: Laura Bayston, Garrick Hagon, Roseanna Anderson, Julia Hills 

In a dreary, British seaside town, a talented artist is haunted by a sinister mermaid, and terrorized by a coven of strange locals.

A welcome return to Grimmfest for Paul Holbrook, whose harrowing body horror, HUNGRY JOE, played a number of years ago, this is an eerie, oppressive study in guilt and psychic collapse, beautifully shot in a palette of dank fungal greys and greens that almost seem to rot on camera, making excellent use of its desolate run-down seaside town and coastal locations, and with a cast of really creepy character players only adding to the overall mood of suffocating judgement, encroaching menace, and non-specific, but very real threat. 

TRT: 118 min 34 sec

Still image from MAREK.