Art Festivals & Events

The international short film festival, Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia (SSFF & ASIA), was founded in 1999 by actor Tetsuya Bessho, a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in the United States. Inspired by his encounter with "short films" in the U.S., he launched the festival—originally named the American Short Short Film Festival—with the aim of introducing this emerging cinematic genre to Japan. In 2004, the festival was officially recognized by the Academy Awards® and has since been supporting young creators through its platform.

SSFF & ASIA 2025 Theme: creative active generative

While many of the films submitted to this year’s festival focused on family ties and the generation gap in each region, half of the films in the International category depicted the conflict in Israel and Palestine. We also saw trends in the entries, such as universal adolescence, trans youth perspectives from Generation Z and stories with dementia as a motif.

And AI-based entries, which have been growing over the past few years, numbered more than 240 this year. While more and more films are using AI technology as a tool for color correction, voice-overs, detailed graphics and effects, scripts and storyboards, fewer and fewer films are being produced entirely in AI, which had been a popular topic of discussion for the past few years.

The festival brings together the ‘creativity’ of filmmakers from all over the world, and aims to create a place where works and audiences, creators and companies can meet and create new chemical reactions in an ‘active’ way. The SSFF & ASIA’s current view and future vision are also expressed in the festival’s theme, ‘Generative’, which is to create a new era of creativity with new technologies that can be linked to ‘Generative AI’. The SSFF & ASIA will be developed under this year’s theme.