Aguilar de Campoo (Spain), a town of just 7,000 inhabitants proudly known as “the cookie town” for hosting the largest biscuit factory in Europe, is one of the most passionate hubs for short cinema in Europe. From November 28 to December 7, 2025, the 37th edition of the AFF Aguilar Film Festival transformed its cinemas into a genuine cultural epicenter, where locals discuss short films with the same fervor others reserve for football, and where screenings are filled regardless of cold, rain, or snow.

This year, the festival turned its gaze toward the Aegean Sea with Focus Greece: DISFF, a special collaboration with the Drama International Short Film Festival (DISFF), Greece’s most important short film event. The programme brought contemporary Greek cinema to northern Spain through eight remarkable short films and the presence of Yorgos Angelopoulos, Artistic Director of DISFF, as an international guest of honor.

For Angelopoulos, the invitation to Aguilar de Campoo represented both an honor and an opportunity to strengthen the international circulation of Greek short films. “It was a great joy and an honour for the Drama Festival to be present in Aguilar this year, because we believe that the more Greek filmmakers’ works travel—especially to festivals far from our own—the more easily their message and talent can be shared,” he explained. According to him, festivals like Aguilar and Drama are united by a shared mission: discovering emerging voices and offering them platforms where their films can connect with new audiences.

Short Films in Focus Greece: DISFF

The DISFF section presented eight short films that capture the pulse of contemporary Greek filmmaking, spanning fiction, animation, and diverse narrative approaches:

• Honeymoon – Alki Papastathopoulos
• Kafka’s Collection of Porn – Aristotelis Maragkos
• Light of Light – Neritan Zinxhiria
• Nothing Holier than a Dolphin – Isabella Margara
• Memoir of a Veering Storm – Sofia Georgovassili
• What We Ask of a Statue is that it Doesn’t Move – Daphné Hérétakis
• Plantasia – Aggelos Gourzis
• Airhostess-737 – Thanasis Neofotistos

Together, these works formed one of the festival’s most heterogeneous and solid selections, blending mythology and politics, realism and spirituality, humor and tragedy. Angelopoulos acknowledged that selecting the programme was far from easy: “It was very difficult to choose the films, because in recent years Greek short filmmaking has produced works of great quality across very different genres and themes.”

Despite limited production resources, Greek short films have achieved remarkable international recognition. “Greek filmmakers, with very limited means, manage to create works that can compete with much larger productions,” Angelopoulos noted, pointing out that creativity and a strong personal vision have become defining traits of the contemporary Greek short film scene.

Festivals with a Shared Mission

During his stay in Aguilar, Angelopoulos drew a clear parallel between the Drama Festival and the Aguilar Film Festival, highlighting their closeness in goals and spirit. Both festivals, he emphasized, are dedicated to discovering new talent and supporting emerging creators at the beginning of their careers. Rejecting any sense of rivalry, he underlined collaboration between festivals as essential to the vitality of cinema, stressing that international exchange benefits filmmakers, festivals, and audiences alike.

Beyond screenings, the Drama Festival’s commitment to new creators extends through a strong educational framework, including the Short Film Hub, talks, activities, and masterclasses that provide young filmmakers with tools for their first professional steps. This philosophy resonated strongly in Aguilar, where the Greek programme was conceived not only as a showcase but also as an act of cultural outreach.

Aggelos Gourzis and Plantasia: Optimism as Resistance

One of the standout works was Plantasia by Aggelos Gourzis, an animated short that approaches the climate crisis from a perspective of hope rather than despair. “Our neglect of nature becomes our downfall, but I didn’t want to stop there,” Gourzis explained. Instead, the film proposes coexistence over conflict: “I wanted the audience to leave with more confidence in ourselves, in the possibility of walking alongside nature and not against it.”

Created as his graduation film at Western Attica University, Plantasia was shaped under intense time pressure. “I had less than three months to submit the film or risk being expelled,” he recalled. That urgency ultimately became liberating, pushing him to trust intuition over perfectionism. Its selection in Aguilar exceeded his expectations and reaffirmed the importance of short films in Greece as a space for experimentation and authorship.

Isabella Margara: When Myths Breathe Again

In Nothing Holier than a Dolphin, Isabella Margara reanimates mythology through cinema and physical theater. “In a small Mediterranean town, an ancient myth unexpectedly comes to life,” she explained. Drawing on myths from both the island of Samos and the Arctic Circle, Margara constructed what she described as “a modern vision combining different mythological traditions.”

The production faced serious obstacles, including the loss of initial funding and a sudden pregnancy shortly before shooting. “It was a disaster in many ways, but I knew I had to move forward,” she recalled. The decision paid off: the film won the Audience Award at Clermont-Ferrand and has screened more than 130 times worldwide. For Margara, this success confirmed the enduring power of storytelling: “Storytelling is a deeply human trait, no matter the country.”

Thanasis Neofotistos and Airhostess-737: Turbulence, Grief, and Humor

Thanasis Neofotistos contributed Airhostess-737, a tragicomic short combining grief, fantasy, and dark humor. Inspired by a dream during therapy, the film follows a flight attendant transporting her mother’s body while the plane encounters severe turbulence. “It’s a story about loss and understanding your mother,” Neofotistos explained.

Once again, limited resources fueled creativity. Unable to film inside a real aircraft, the team built a full-scale set, turning the plane itself into a living presence. Reflecting on Greek short cinema, Neofotistos observed: “We are very strong in this format. The challenge lies in building the bridge toward feature films.”

DISFF in Aguilar

Conceived as a window into the momentum of contemporary Greek cinema, Focus Greece: DISFF gave greater visibility to young Greek filmmakers while offering Aguilar’s audiences the opportunity to discover a cinematography they might not yet have encountered. As Angelopoulos summarized, the ultimate goal was inspiration and connection: “Communication between a film and its audience is the true purpose of the cinematic experience.”

In Aguilar, where the aroma of cookies mingles with a deep passion for cinema, Greece found a welcoming home—and viewers discovered some of the most compelling voices in contemporary short filmmaking.