17th Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival – Shift your gaze to the Unseen
12-16 November 2026, Athens, Greece
The 17th Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival, under the title ‘’Shift your gaze to the Unseen’’, returns to Athens on 12-16 November 2026, at the National Film Archive, featuring the contemporary balkan gaze to the Athenian audience and bringing together filmmakers and audiences from across the Balkans to share an international cinematic experience. The festival will start with the screening of the documentary “The stuff we are made of” by Siamak Etemandi, while for one more time the festival goes beyond the borders featuring the BBB Cross-border screening with simultaneous screenings in different cities across Europe.
When dominant narratives dictate the frame, what we choose to see becomes a political act. If something is not visible, does it really exist? What brings it into view, and who decides what stays within the frame and what is excluded from collective memory? In a world saturated with images and information, visibility does not automatically mean understanding. We invite audiences to turn their focus toward the unseen, the overlooked stories, hidden perspectives, parallel realities, invisible communities, and forgotten memories that coexist within our shared social landscape.
Short Film Screenings
The main Competition programme, formed by the preselection committee and festival programming team, features 32 short films by emerging filmmakers from the Balkan region and beyond, challenging the boundaries of visibility and questioning dominant ways of seeing through 6 thematic slots: Reframing identities, Family in Glimpses, A strictly Personal gaze, Seen/unseen or To Be Discussed, Looking for a getaway, Resist against the oblivion. For one more year we have a dedicated space examining the creative potential and narrative possibilities offered by Artificial Intelligence in filmmaking with a special competition programme: BBB creative AI. This year we are launching a new Competition Programme, titled BBB Gen A bringing the young generations from 4 to 15 y.o. to explore the power of short film in discussing contemporary issues through a dedicated short films selection. For the 4+ programme we are pleased to host the KiDdo programme of the Drama International Short Film Festival offering our young audience a cinematic experience by greek filmmakers.
The non competition programme consists of the BBB Beyond (international programme), the BBB Focus: Czechia, the BBB & co screening, with a special selection of short films by our collaborators and last but not least a special screening dedicated to the Greek new gaze titled BBB greek picks, consisting of greek shorts selected from the official submissions of the festival.
Parallel Activities
Alongside the screening programme, the 17th edition festival will host a rich series of parallel activities, the BBB Cine Forum IV, titled “The power of cinema to See the Unseen”, including workshops, masterclasses, round tables. The parallel activities of the festival also include the Unfold conference, a series of sessions dedicated to the power of cultural intervention in the public space bringing together international artists and local stakeholders to discuss the opportunities and challenges of creating art in the public space in order to engage the community.