The 10 Minute Challenge Premiere

*Doors open at 18:00. The ceremony starts at 18:30.

After several months of working on their films, the participants finally get to showcase their work on the big screen during the 10 Minute Challenge Premiere! It is a chance for all the teams to meet all together once again, reflect on their progress throughout the 10 Minute Challenge trajectory, and, of course, present their films to the public.

Each screening is followed by a brief Q&A with the filmmakers, where they can talk a little bit about their motivation and process. At the end of the evening, the public vote for “Audience Favorite” award officially opens and the countdown to the Award Ceremony starts.

The 10 Minute Challenge is a short film competition for beginning queer filmmakers. Following a program of masterclasses, the participants are encouraged to make their own 10-minute short films, which celebrate their premiere during QFFU and can win prizes in the categories ‘Best Film‘, ‘Emerging Talent’, and ‘Audience Favorite’. In 2024, the masterclasses are in collaboration with Studio Camera.

Mystery in Monochrome — Fay Doff (9 mins)

In “Mystery in Monochrome” we follow Finn, a criminology student who becomes entangled in a web of paranoia and intrigue when his fascination with true crime leads him to find a dark conspiracy unfolding in his faculty. Or so he thinks… Due to his overactive imagination, Finn becomes convinced that his classmate, Nora, is conspiring with their professor to cheat on the finals. He concocts a delusional narrative in which he is the valiant detective, who is tasked with uncovering the truth of this conspiracy.

As Finn dives deeper into his investigation he becomes fixated on Nora’s every move, bordering on stalking. However, in his overzealous pursuit of the truth his increasingly absurd antics only serve to alienate himself further from Nora and reality itself. In the end, Finn’s mind remains trapped in his noir-esque narrative. Unable to accept the truth, he concludes that his villain, Nora, has won this time around.

“Mystery in Monochrome” is a whimsical neo-noir comedy that challenges classic film-noir elements. With its blend of humor and pathos, the film offers commentary on the nature of obsession, the fine line between fantasy and reality, and the contemporary danger that is men with podcasts.

Two Birds with One Stone — GROSS&DOOMED (10 mins)

Two queer people encounter each other at different cruising locations across three different countries. In the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus, as celebrated in Orthodox Christianity, they draw parallels with their queer experience of self-reinvention, contemplate on the metaphysics of death, and succumb to a mutually aided experience of rebirth.

The narrative unfolds in an often chaotic, intuitional style, reflective of the process of development and filming, woven together by a voiceover of philosophical reflections. The film draws from the makers’ personal experiences and was filmed in their native countries of North Macedonia and Greece, as well as their country of residence, the Netherlands.

Content warning: nudity

Jean en Sarah — Parker Burrows (9 mins)

A found mannequin leads Jean and Sarah towards a new hobby that quickly turns into an obsession. Rather than using dialogue to convey its narrative, Jean and Sarah tell the story with a close attentiveness to physical gestures.

With eccentric costumes, gentle cinematography, and dreamy atmosphere, Jean and Sarah represent queerness by emphasizing its unspoken elements. The film draws a playful but tender connection between creating art and creating queer relationships: that the two flourish under the same foundations of warmth, trust and collaboration.

The Future, The Future — Cate Zanardi (11 mins)

The Future, The Future is a movie about life sprouting with joy and love in the cracks of an unjust system, a system you are implicated in.

It does not offer a solution to this contradiction; it simply shows the life of a group of friends in Utrecht in the period between before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and today, during the genocide of Palestinians by Israel in Gaza.

It’s a movie that many of us could make from our phones’ galleries. It’s about people holding each other, being silly, and being alive and how that’s resistance, too, but not the kind that stops genocides. Sometimes, we don’t film to change or revolutionize: we film for a future we don’t know if we can afford.

Content warning: needles, police brutality

CripPleasurePower — Ari Sinn (10 mins)

Imagine what your bodymind would move towards if it wasn’t regulated by normative ideas of what it means to be sexy or attractive. If your sexual pleasure universe privileged autonomy and consent. What feelings and sensations would your bodymind linger on? What need could you finally and lovingly satisfy?

“CripPleasurePower” is a documentary/essay film that invites viewers into the intimate realm of the artist’s desires by exploring the possibilities of aligning your pleasures with your values. This experimental journey seeks to liberate individuals from conventional notions of sex, urging a profound connection with one’s own erotic power as a life force.

By delving into the rich tapestry and amplifying the voices and diverse experiences of disabled individuals, the film celebrates a crip sexual culture, broadening our constrained definitions of sex. The narrative dismantles normative beliefs, questioning the entrenched notion that nondisabled, heteronormative sex is the sole and default expression of intimacy. Ultimately, the film advocates for a centering of pleasure and joy as a lifeforce, strongly influenced by the great activists and writers adrienne marie brown, Audre Lorde, Shayda Kafai, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ingrid LaFleur.

I Fell In Love With The Devil — Luan Machado (9 mins)

Patrick is another guy who loves to meet people through dating apps and someday he finds someone who he feels attracted to by something, he has no idea of what is going to happen to him.

Content warning: physical violence, explicit language

Walk Me Home — Maartje Rees (11 mins)

Moos and Raven meet each other at a party and bring home a friend of theirs who is a bit too drunk. They wander around the streets of Utrecht; buy ice cream, find poetry and dance in the middle of the street. They end up bringing each other home back and forth, because they don’t want the night to end, because Raven is leaving for Costa Rica tomorrow….