2024, 11 minutes

The first short, Learning English, introduces us to Hannah, a recent Chinese immigrant in the U.S. who is eager to improve her English. When she accidentally receives a misdialed call, she capitalizes on the moment to forge a makeshift, one-sided exchange. Learning English deftly uses humor to depict the often-absurd realities of navigating a new language, especially the internal contradictions of wanting to integrate while being repeatedly dismissed or ignored. As the program opener, this film by Jean Liu embodies the tentative and often awkward first steps toward connection in a foreign culture.

Norway, 2021, 14 minutes.

Customs, the second short of our Crossing series, follows a Chinese backpacker arriving in a quiet Norwegian village using a Homestay app, only to encounter a breakdown in hospitality and communication. As silent expectations clash with unspoken discomforts, director Armita Keyani reveals how even seemingly welcoming environments can harbor tension. With its meditative pacing and restrained emotion, Customs serves as a fitting conclusion to Connections, bringing into focus the fragility of cross-cultural relationships and the emotional uncertainty that lingers beneath everyday exchanges.

2020, 14 min

The third short, Slå Rundt Busken (Beat Around the Bush) follows Melina, an 18-year-old refugee attempting to enter the job market in Norway. Through dry, almost surreal humor, Beat Around the Bush portrays how migrants are often forced to conform to arbitrary standards and face subtle forms of exclusion. This film by Joern Utkilen critiques institutionalized gatekeeping within host countries, raising questions about who gets to “belong” and under what conditions. As part of Connections, the film examines the bureaucratic and social dimensions of integration with nuance and irony.

Norway, 2024, 13 min.

African Family Dinner, the last short, is a biting social comedy that follows Mona, a young Norwegian, attempts to impress her Ghanaian boyfriend’s family over dinner, only to fumble through assumptions and cultural missteps. Through its sharp dialogue and layered humor, African Family Dinner interrogates diasporic identity and performative multiculturalism. It asks what it means to “know” a culture and how misunderstandings reveal deeper tensions about race, ethnicity, and belonging. Within the Connections program, this film by Ibrahim Mursal broadens the discourse to include the ways cultural exchange unfolds within immigrant communities themselves, not just between migrants and host societies.