2026 Palm Springs International Shortfest Review Roundup Part 3

In part 3 of our Palm Springs International Shortfest coverage we review 3 more short films in The Tuners, Equal Dust and Hand. Check out what we had to say below!

Hand, dir. Jennifer Winterbotham

Jennifer Winterbotham brings us the horror comedy Hand, which starts us off with Amber (Sharlene Cruz) getting woken up in the middle of the night by a call from her boyfriend Justin (Dario Vazquez). While sparse on the details, it is apparent from sniffles and body languages alone that a relationship-ending mistake has been made. We cut to the pair fighting it out on a desert road to the tune of Hey by Pixies, a framing that takes the edge of an otherwise dramatic scene. Once the initial frustration dies down they head home, but not before Amber gets a splinter in her hand from a roadside bush, thus introducing our third and titular character – her hand.

From here onwards we jump swiftly between the present day where Amber is packing up Justin’s things in a box, memories of the times they shared together, fantasies of how she wishes things would have been, and something in the intersection of all three. Everything in her life is a reminder of what happened; their shared workplace where everyone seems to be aware of what happened, his truck that appears to be parked anywhere she is, all the stains in the carpet and the story of how they got there. Clearly struggling to cope with the sudden break, the hand and the wound becomes a symbol for her growing frustration, in both its physical form as well as the mental discomfort.

Quickly shuffling through the five stages of grief, the core of this film is the separation story framed as a horror film with Justin appearing as the ghost-like character paralyzing Amber in her heartache. The infected hand serves as a direct reminder of this, and while the resulting infection seems exaggerated for comedic effect, the pain mirrors her real pain of separation. This is further enforced by shooting some of the scenes from the hands perspective, not only making it feel like a character in itself but also giving it a “creature feature”-esque role through basic but impactful VFX.

Similarly to the role of the hand the soundtrack plays a big part throughout the film too. It starts with the decision to make the initial fight void of dialogue in favor of music, which is a recurring theme connecting certain scenes together. This is coupled with very familiar horror effects like plucking screeching strings or fast paced drums, quick edits that appear as an auditory jump scare, and so on. The focus here sits firmly on Sharlene Cruz’ character as the lead, but she is accompanied by all these technical co-leads making the film feel very rich and polished. The concept is something we have definitely seen in the past, but when executed well like this it hits the spot every time.

Review by: Robin Hellgren

The Tuners, dir. Paweł Chorzępa

Usually, competition documentaries focus on the competitors of an event. The sole concentration is on the individuals participating in that. One of those cases is the 2023 documentary Pianoforte by Jakub Piątek, which captures the backstage of the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition. It is a music contest where the participants have to play one of the pieces by the Polish composer. Since 1955, the event has occurred every five years, heightening its importance and anticipation. This year, Paweł Chorzępa documents the professionals who make the spectacle possible: the piano tuners. In The Tuners (Stroiciele), the Polish filmmaker showcases the behind-the-scenes of the competition, the final details of the performances.

Chorzępa breaks down the film into three chapters, each named after a Piano provider: I. Steinway, II. Kawai, and III. Fazioli. Those instruments, which cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars, require a specific tuner, responsible for all of the pianos of that brand. Each of the competitors can choose which of the handcrafters they want; thus, the tuner will adjust the piano before each of the performances. Here, the film explores the unsung top performances behind the competition, showcasing their musical talents. Similar to racecar drivers, pianists need the highly trained technicians to tune their instruments well. In this sense, it becomes a parallel event between the tuners, who give their best to provide the best piano to the player. In one of the interviews, the tuner says he changes his diet during the competition, implying a difference in his performance.

In this sense, the fascinating nature of The Tuners is an attempt to spotlight those shadowed by the gala attire and the long Chopin pieces played by those talented pianists. Chorzępa portrays a glimpse of the activity of the three tuners there: Jaroslaw Bednarski (Steinway), Ortwin Moreau (Fazioli), and Hidemi Okubo (Kawai). Those men are the central engine of the proper power of the historical piano brands that produce handcrafted instruments and charge plenty for them. Therefore, while we follow the three tuners, Chorzępa captures the movements of the piano keys in an almost transcendental form, a sudden movement shot by the director and Maciej Kwaśniewski. Instead of a near capture of the long process of piano tuning, the duo of cinematographers look for the movements inside the piano, seeking the possibility of imagery provided by the engineering of those instruments.

In this sense, the structure and capture of this film prevent it from the boredom of repetition. Each chapter introduces us to the desire of the tuners to taste the flavour of glory. In 2025, for the first time in history, the tuners would also receive the central prize, alongside the pianist. Yet, the director inflicts suspense in the audience by cutting the film before the announcement of the winner. However, when it cuts to black, he reveals the piano brand of the winner (no spoilers here). Still, the film ends on close-ups of Jaroslaw, Ortwin, and Hidemi, anxious to hear the words that place them in the eternal glory of classical music. For Paweł Chorzępa, when it cuts to black, it positions his The Tuners as one of the most fascinating and well-shot documentary shorts of the year.

Review by: Pedro Lima

Equal Dust, dir. Jani Peltonen

The only thing Finns fear more than nuclear war is receiving nul points in the Eurovision Song Contest. In November 1983, the Finnish broadcasting company performed a camera test, driving through the city of Helsinki at night, filming with a static camera through the front windshield. This grainy analogue dashcam footage, with the staticky sound and washed-out colours of a lost-and-found VHS horror films, provides the visual foundation for a recounting of NATO's Able Archer program that year, and a narrative that explores how pop culture absorbs political trauma through Finland's Eurovision performances.

At the same time, NATO was conducting Able Archer 83, an annual military exercise simulating the outbreak of nuclear war. That year's exercise incorporated an unprecedented degree of realism, including new encrypted communications, radio silence, and the involvement of national leaders. Amid already heightened Cold War tensions, Soviet intelligence mistook parts of the exercise for preparations for a genuine first strike, prompting Moscow to place elements of its nuclear forces on heightened alert.

With its fatalist worldview and deadpan captions (not to mention the wildly flamboyant 80s hairstyles and fashions on display) Equal Dust might be the funniest possible documentary to be made about narrowly avoiding a nuclear war. A single 12-minute tracking shot of driving through the city of Helsinki forms the basis of Equal Dust, but Peltonen uses a whole bag of tricks to keep the simply-shot film visually exciting, including on-screen text, split screen, mirror images and magnification. The camera test sets an apocalyptic scenario: the radius of the drive roughly corresponds to the area that would be affected by the shockwave of a nuclear bomb explosion. For much of the second half of the film he makes the brilliant decision to show the real-life of nighttime Helsinki during Able Archer 83 on one side, and Finland’s cultural reaction on the other side.

After setting the scene with the horror of a potential nuclear war, Peltonen pivots—hard—to the simultaneous history of Finland’s Eurovision songs. The Finnish music community processed its latent fears through its annual entries. Eurovision's insistence on optimism, spectacle and international goodwill makes it an unlikely vessel for Cold War anxiety, and Peltonen's joke is that Finland kept smuggling visions of apocalypse onto the Eurovision stage anyway. Finland’s 1983 entry, the anti-nuclear song Nuku Pommiin by singer Kojo, in which he passionately but confusingly sings, “If someone soon throws some nuclear poo here on our Europe / What will you say when we get all the filth on our faces,” got last place in that year’s Eurovision, with a grand total of zero points. The under-achieving Finland has placed last a total of eleven times, three times with nul points, and Nuku Pommiin is one of only a handful of songs to score no points under the modern scoring system.

Able Archer 83 is commonly seen as the event that has brought the world closest to nuclear war, but everyday life in Finland continues despite looming catastrophe, and the apocalyptic terror carries through to Eläköön Elämä by Sonja Lumme, Finland’s 1985 Eurovision entry. Ostensibly a song about the United States' "Star Wars" missile defense system, its lyrics are suffused with a sense of unease and absence: “It's night in the city but I don't see any stars / A thousand stars aren't shining / They're left behind a grey veil.” The image is strikingly reminiscent of the nighttime camera test—streets illuminated by artificial light but overshadowed by the possibility of a catastrophe that remains unseen.

Sata Salamaa, the 1987 Eurovision entry from Vicky Rosti, pushes anxiety to its logical conclusion, imagining escape from a doomed Earth: “When a hundred suns shine on us / And a ship is ready to depart / I will take our love to a safe place / And we’ll find a new land.” While superpowers rehearsed the end of the world, Finland processed that dread through three-minute pop songs and annual Eurovision disappointments, and Peltonen finds something both hilarious and unsettling in that juxtaposition. Beneath the garish costumes, questionable lyrics and nul points lies a country quietly contemplating nuclear annihilation. By the end of Equal Dust, the fantasy of leaving a destroyed earth no longer feels absurd, and Peltonen has transformed an ordinary drive through Helsinki into a journey through a country quietly imagining its own extinction.

Review by: Joshua Hunt