San Sebastian’s Nest sidebar, the international showcase for student filmmakers, has locked its 2025 lineup with 14 shorts drawn from a record 473 submissions representing 220 schools in 57 countries. This edition gathers filmmakers from Belgium, France, Germany, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.S. The section runs Sept. 22–26 during the festival’s 73rd edition.
Now in its 24th year, Nest spotlights work from film schools worldwide and serves as a launchpad for new voices. Past Alumni include Leonardo van Dijl, Raven Jackson, Isabel Lamberti, Léa Mysius and Kiro Russo, all of whom have since launched features on the international circuit.
Diego Céspedes, who came through the section, won Cannes’ Un Certain Regard prize earlier this year with “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo,” which screens in San Sebastian’s Horizontes Latinos sidebar. Jaume Claret Muxart, another alum, will show “Strange River” in Venice’s Orizzonti section this week before it heads to San Sebastian for its showing in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section. Paula Tomás Marques and Hanxiong Bo, both past Nest participants, will also return, while Roxana Stroe has been selected for the festival’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum with her debut feature project “Houses Are Silent.”
A jury of students from the selected schools, led by an industry professional yet to be named, will choose the winner of the Nest The Mediapro Studio Award, which comes with €10,000. Two new prizes are being introduced this year: the Movistar Plus+ Award for Best Short Film, which includes acquisition of Spanish broadcast rights, and the Tabakalera Award, offering a three-week residency in 2026 for project development.
The Nest program is backed by a partnership with The Mediapro Studio, signed last year, which includes professional training and support for finalist directors developing their debut work. Ten students from the company’s Screenwriting Master’s Degree program will also participate in festival activities.
Nest filmmakers will also benefit from San Sebastian’s new tie-in with the Cannes Short Film Corner, gaining free entry into its curated market catalog and invitations to the May 2026 events of the SFC | Rendez-vous Industry, a professional short film forum organised by the Festival de Cannes.
All past Nest award-winning films will screen in a continuous program at Tabakalera’s Medialab Studio during the festival, with free entry. Looking ahead, San Sebastián’s year-round Zinemaldia + Plus program will dedicate its 2026 season to films set in or around film schools, in collaboration with the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola.
Scroll down for the full Nest lineup and details.
“A solidão dos lagartos” (“The Loneliness of Lizards”)
Director: Inês Nunes.
Director: Inês Nunes
Countries of production: Spain/Portugal
Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola – EQZE (Spain)
In a spa surrounded by salt mountains, the visitors enjoy the heat, while the salt workers get on with their job just a few metres away. The children run away from the adults and a woman gets lost in the salt flats. When darkness falls, the space transforms, stimulating the desires of all who pass through them.
“Ako počúvať fontány” (“How to Listen to Fountains”)
Director: Eva Sajanová
Country of production: Slovakia
Academy of Music and Performing Arts (FTF VSMU) (Slovakia)
This film is about public space. This film is about the destruction of culture. This film is about fountains that have had enough. In this film, the fountains come to life, they become living beings, each one has its own character and tells a different story. They speak out so that people notice them, perceive them, take care of them. Their rebellion culminates in a protest. What would happen if fountains could talk?
“Casa chica”
Director: Lau Charles
Country of production: Mexico
Cast: Raúl Briones, Katherine Bernal, Mauro Guzmán, Daniela Arroio
Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, A.C. (Mexico)
Valentina, aged 5, and her brother Quique, 11, meet their father's other family and their lives are turned upside down on discovering that their half-sister is the same age as Valentina.
“DARU/N / DARU/N” (“PASSED/MOTHER”)
Director: Benjamin Hindrichs
Countries of production: Spain/Germany
LA CASA DEL CINE (Spain)
Every morning, Lucila, an 80-year-old indigineous healer in Brazil, switches on the radio, looks at the forest outside her house and asks herself: What will happen when we die, the forest and myself? As the forest fires close in on her home, she revives an old dream.
“Habitat Hotel”
Director: Marina Xarri
Country of production: USA
Cast: Lana Bolycheva, Oleg Blinov, Johnny Zito, Judith Roberts
Tisch School of the Arts at NYU (USA)
As Christmas approaches and the Paris Hotel in NYC fills with guests, an immigrant housekeeper, Boni, and her brother, the lobby clerk, are without a place to sleep. Secretly living in the hotel, Boni's need for rest tangles with a deeper curiosity – about the guests, the rooms, and the lives behind closed doors. When she discovers a disturbing notebook in a guest's room, her search for sleep is overtaken by an obsession with the lives around her and the things we keep hidden.
“Le continent somnambule” (“The Land of Slumber”)
Director: Jules Vésigot-Wahl
Country of production: France
Cast: Nikola Parashkevov, Anna Bankina
La Fémis (France)
Ivan, a railroader in a train without passengers, crosses a sleepy land. His solitary life changes when he meets Lyudmila: a sleepwalker waiting tirelessly for her son's return.
“Ma mère dort” (“My Mother Sleeps”)
Director: Moana Son
Country of production: Belgium
Cast: Stanislas Bellefroid, Maude Richard
INSAS (Belgium)
A child, a hen house, dead leaves, a cake and a mother struggling with existence.
“Maman danse” (“Mom Dances”)
Director: Mégane Brügger
Country of production: Switzerland
Cast: Françoise Brügger, Mégane Brügger
ECAL/University of Arts and Design Lausanne (Switzerland)
What remains of a mother after years of domestic violence? What remains of her body, her dignity and her strength? Surely words, memory and a few dance steps that can still be passed down.
“Ndhuk” (“Daughter”)
Director: Hui Yin Koo
Country of production: Malaysia
Cast: Theia Ela Yusnita, Evelyn Wei Ni Yap
Multimedia University (Malaysia)
Ika, a domestic worker in Malaysia, finds a sense of peace caring for her employer's child, Jane. Her world is shaken when a pocket dial from her daughter back in Indonesia reveals a painful secret: her child is terrified about a possible pregnancy. Ika finds a brief moment of respite while watching Jane rehearse The Giving Tree. Later that night, a video call with her daughter finally allows Ika to feel like a mother again, reaffirming the unbreakable bond between them.
“Only Making Out”
Director: Marlon Weber
Country of production: Germany
Cast: Sandra Makhlouf, Junya Fujita, Anton Wolff
HFBK Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg (Germany)
Two figures at dusk. The next day they meet with a third one.
“So ist das Leben und nicht anders” (“Life is Like That and Not Otherwise”)
Director: Lenia Friedrich
Country of production: Germany
Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM) (Germany)
The life of almost 100-year-old Mrs. Miko unfolds like a collage, while her neighbour reflects on getting older. Animation and archive material bring back memories – as well as the mysterious disappearance of a mink coat.
“Tem letom ja postupil” (“That Summer I Got Accepted to University”)
Director: Aleksandr Belov
Countries of production: Sweden
Cast: Oleg Yagodin, Sergej Gruzinov, Elmir Ibragimov
Stockholm University of the Arts (Sweden)
In a Russian country house, two boys, Anton and Zhenya, shoot air rifles at bottles. Anton suddenly fires at a cat, shocking Zhenya. Their friendship becomes strained. That evening, Anton's father takes them to the river and recalls his own childhood, when he built a forest shelter together with a friend. As night falls, Anton tries to reconcile, but Zhenya rejects his friendship. The next day, at the bus stop, they part without speaking, their silence filled with unspoken tension and guilt.
“The Old Bull Knows, Or Once Knew”
Director: Milan Kumar
Country of production: India
Cast: Mansingh Wakude, Shalabai Wakude
Film & Television Institute of India, Pune, India (India)
In a fading nomadic settlement built on a former cremation ground, an aging bull, Shankar, spends his final day before being sent away, mirroring the quiet displacement of the Nandiwale people and their traditions.
“When the Geese Flew”
Director: Arthur Gay
Country of production: New Zealand
Cast: Tom Kerr, Lee-Ann Dirks, Jack Parker, Jono Martin
Columbia University (USA)
Working at his emotionally distant father's mechanic shop, a resilient fifteen-year-old Cyrus struggles to accept the impending departure of his older sister Sammy, the only source of emotional support in his life. When he spots Sammy's old stolen dirt bike, he takes it upon himself to recover it, in the hopes that this may preserve their bond.
