© 2026 The Couch Critic
A village girl, Galya, admires her older sister, Aina. Perhaps when she grows up, she dreams of living in the city with a boyfriend and dressing just as well. Until one day, her mother sends her to the city with her sister and her sister's boyfriend, as if to protect her older daughter from violence.
“What do we say anymore to conjure the salt of our earth?” 400 meters under the surface in coastal Antrim, machinery and poetry echo out from the depths of Ireland's only active salt mine. Featuring and inspired by Seamus Heaney’s “The Singers House”, this short documentary takes a poetic view of the salt mine as both an artificial space and a natural environment, finding a sense of humanity in its alien sounds and structures.
(X: @hm0z0) Hisham reflects on his journey from maintenance engineer to actor and writer, revisiting his early days in independent cinema, his successful comedy work, memorable personal stories, football rivalry, and upcoming AI-themed projects, while naming El Ragol El Anab as the work he is most proud of
Set in 1986, during a scorching Aussie summer, three best friends' celebration at a beach house turns into a blood-soaked fight for survival when a prank goes horribly wrong.
Keo, a cosmic pirate determined to collect as much star dust as possible, sees his dangerous routine turned upside down when he meets a strange alien whose survival depends on this precious material.
A teenage boy decides to pick up skateboarding as a means of making friends.
After her life is disrupted, Calle is seen holding on to soccer as a source of purpose and possibility. As she navigates uncertainty and self-doubt, she is guided by Sir David Beckham who appears as a personification of her inner voice, a guardian only she can see. He’s a powerful symbol of belief and opportunity, standing with her and showing up when it matters.
In a dusty apartment, Gabo mourns the end of a difficult relationship. Soon, reality gives way to a dreamlike delirium…
João got stood up.
Poet Punch's submission to the Shot4Shot film festival in 2026
When a folk band struggles completing their sophomore album, they summon a Norse god to help them finish it.
A young girl grapples with gender bias and sibling rivalry amidst her family's celebration of a baby boy.
Neo was three and a half years old when a devastating car accident left him with a severe brainstem injury. After five days suspended between life and death, he wakes up unable to breathe, speak, walk, or eat on his own. In the hospital, his parents, Lior and Galit, pick up a camera and never put it down. Shaped from hundreds of hours of intimate footage, 'I Am Neo' is a portrait of a child and his family slowly rebuilding their lives, revealing both the fragility of life, and the strength of the human spirit.
A grieving man is taken on an journey through strange worlds by a hooded figure in the hope of recovering his dead wife.
