NPA

We’re proud to share that two films produced by NPA fellows have been selected for the Gouden Kalf Competition at the Netherlands Film Festival 2026!

The animated short film Mind Your Step, produced by NPA fellow Baran Sedighian, directed by Alina Milkina, and co-written by Floor van Lissa and Alina Milkina, is getting the recognition that it deserves. Baran is a producer and animation filmmaker with a deep passion for storytelling, originally from Iran. As a fellow of the New Producer Academy, she is committed to helping artists bring their visions to life.

Mind Your Step had its international premiere at the Oscar-qualifying festival Chilemonos and then continued its festival circuit at thirteen festivals around the world among which are In the Palace, Bulgaria, Animage, Brazil, Cinanima, Portugal, Festival of Animation Berlin, Drama Internarional Short film festival in Greece, Linoleum, Ukraine, and Spark Animation in Vancouver.

Mind Your Step tells a story of a middle-age woman Tamara who works as a train station cleaner, having emigrated from her home in search of a better life. While doing her duties in the invisibility of her “low status” job, Tamara liberates herself by dancing in front of people in a subway car.

Last Shot, produced and co-written by NPA fellow Karim Mrabti and directed by Parham Rahimzadeh, has already made its mark on the international festival circuit. The film had its world premiere at IFFR 2026, where it was selected for the Tiger Short Competition, and has since screened at festivals including Go Short, Palm Springs International ShortFest, Galway Film Fleadh, and Ciné-Palestine. At Go Short, the film won the Best Dutch Film Award and it has also been selected for the Gouden Kalf Competition at the Netherlands Film Festival.

Karim Mrabti is a Dutch-Moroccan producer, writer and emerging director working internationally, mostly across Europe, Africa, and the Arab world. He is the founder of Mohsin Films, a production company focused on stories from the Global South and its diasporas. An alumnus of the New Producers Academy (2023–2024) and IFFR Rotterdam Lab (2026), Karim develops, writes and produces films that move between cultures, countries and perspectives, with a particular interest in questions of identity, belonging and diaspora.

Last Shot follows Musa, a Palestinian living in the Netherlands, who develops the final roll of film left behind by his late brother Samir, a photojournalist from Gaza who was killed in a bombing. As the photographs reveal grief, loss and a painful legacy, Musa is confronted with questions of censorship when Samir’s unfinished work risks being removed from an important photography exhibition in Rotterdam.

We can’t wait to see where these films and their makers go next.