Written by Nina Evans for THE ARTISTS FORUM MAGAZINE
Edited by Amos White V for THE ARTISTS FORUM, INC
Photos: Production stills courtesy of from the movies Cookie, Love, White Belt, Theatre of Dreams, The Dark Knot at the Center, Run in Beauty, and Panther Pat
REVIEWER RATING:
4 out of 5 stars
2026 TRIBECA SHORTS: WHATEVER IT TAKES
NEW YORK, NY (September 25, 2026) The Tribeca Festival 2026 Shorts: Whatever It Takes program premiered on June 7, 2026, at the Shorts Theater at Spring Studios in New York City. The Artists Forum was invited to attend the screening. The 89-minute program brings together six short documentaries centered on perseverance, identity, ambition, and the barriers people confront in pursuing their goals.
Below are the individual reviews of the six films.
COOKIE, LOVE (France, United States, 2026)
Director: Sari Arambulo
Featuring: Jean Hwang Carrant
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33037674/
REVIEWER RATING:
3.5 out of 5 stars
Cookie, Love centers on Taiwanese-American baker Jean Hwang Carrant, recounting her immigration to Paris and subsequent success opening her cookie bakery. It also tells the story of Jean’s relationship with her husband, which survived the couple’s continental distance and language barrier through a series of letters.
Jean’s positive outlook is infectious. From the beginning, her smile fills the screen and does not leave it until the credits roll. I also thought the creative direction of the cutaway graphics was quite strong.
Ultimately, I was most interested when the film touched on the various facets of Jean’s identity as Taiwanese, American, and Parisian, asking to which she felt most connected. While I was charmed by Jean’s personality and humor, Cookie, Love felt like the least urgent of the films in the “Whatever It Takes” collection. It was entertaining, but it was hard to pinpoint what was calling this story to the present moment. For that reason, I was left wanting a little bit more.
WHITE BELT (United States, 2026)
Director: Branislav Jankic
Writer: Branislav Jankic
Featuring: Monika “Jac” Jagaciak, Gregor Gracie
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt42070851/
REVIEWER RATING:
5 out of 5 stars
White Belt was one of my favorite films of the program. The documentary short follows former supermodel Monika “Jac” Jagaciak, who recently began training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Throughout the film, Monika narrates her history in the modeling and fashion industries with a grateful outlook but many lessons learned.
Right after her first casting in Poland, she was quickly launched into an international market where she did not have the language, experience, or power to properly advocate for herself. Jiu-Jitsu, she explains, has become a practice in her life in which she channels her own power and builds her body’s strength.
I really admired the takeaway lessons of the film. Monika says she wants to serve as a good example for her young daughter, but I think she serves as that for a larger audience. As celebrities grow thinner and weaker and cosmetic GLP-1 usage is rampant, and concurrently, as right-wing conservative and trad-wife ideology permeates the mainstream collective consciousness, there is a tacit order for women to become smaller, both physically and metaphorically. White Belt pushes back on this and instructs us to do whatever we can command more space.
THEATRE OF DREAMS (Qatar, 2025)
Director: Fatma Al-Ghanim
Writer: Fatma Al-Ghanim
Featuring: Fatma Al-Ghanim
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38884226/
REVIEWER RATING:
4.5 out of 5 stars
Theatre of Dreams is the directorial debut of Fatma Al-Ghanim, captain of Qatar’s first women’s soccer team. In a fusion of documentary and creative narrative form, Theatre of Dreams explains Qatar’s cultural pressures on women in athletics.
I had the chance to speak with Al-Ghanim on the red carpet at Tribeca’s screening, and she explained that she was most inspired to make the film when her country hosted the FIFA World Cup. Exacerbated by the sudden mania and support for soccer at home, unresolved feelings about the end of her soccer career kept haunting her. The film depicts this, showing Al-Ghanim mentally walking through her former locker rooms and stadiums, as if in a dream.
I liked the narrative elements of the film, which really brought forth how internally and emotionally driven gender-based oppression can be. Though some things are not formally prohibited or forbidden, the expectation of what a woman can or should be continues to pervade the mind. In America now, as women’s sports are continuing to bring in larger audiences and more attention, I think films like this are important to remind us that there is still much to be done for all women to truly access and thrive in athletics, and that the mission to extend that access is absolutely necessary.
THE DARK KNOT AT THE CENTER (Portugal, United States, 2026)
Director: Inês Pedrosa e Melo
Cinematographer: Marta Simões
Featuring: Archival testimonies
REVIEWER RATING:
4.5 out of 5 stars
In a series of narrations drawn from a 1960s archive, The Dark Knot at the Center tells the story of different women’s arduous journeys to get abortion care. The script cuts together different testimonies, never truly centering around one full narrative, but rather, eschewing the identity of the original authors by collaging their accounts. Some come across country lines, some take the bus for miles and miles. Some arrive at a motel, some clandestinely meet their provider in a grocery store.
The Dark Knot at the Center blends past with present, though in a literal sense, only recounting the past. Post Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood reports that 43% of American women of reproductive age live in states with restrictive care or total abortion bans. It’s easy placing these stories in the present, because one doesn’t have to imagine if the state of abortion care could be so horrible, it actively is. The film’s video content is undated, largely pastoral or setting-based, which further pushes these stories into today’s world. It is haunting, prescient, and I enjoy the archival material as a reminder that history often repeats itself.
RUN IN BEAUTY (United States, 2026)
Director: Devin Whetstone
Writer: Devin Whetstone
Featuring: Alexandria Staten
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt42070678/
REVIEWER RATING:
4 out of 5 stars
Run in Beauty follows indigenous runner Alex Staten’s experience training for and running the Western States Endurance Run (WSWR), a hundred-mile endurance race through mountains, creeks, and woods. In preparing for the race, Staten explores her connection with the natural landscape, which directly ties back to her Diné roots.
She feels a distance between herself and her family’s past, though she feels closest to her culture through her grandmother. Staten decides to shape her race philosophy around the idea of running in beauty, meaning appreciating the natural world that she and her fellow athletes would be trekking through.
The race is extremely difficult, demanding a lot of Staten’s body and ability. Throughout the film, her endurance and dedication stick out. She is training her body but also preparing her mind, trying to tap into her ancestors’ guidance. While some runners of the WSWR might see nature as an obstacle, something making their run even harder, Staten sees it as an opportunity to commune with the world and the past.
PANTHER PAT (United States, 2026)
Director: Ashley Brandon
Writer: Ashley Brandon
Featuring: Patricia Palinkas
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt39363050/
REVIEWER RATING:
5 out of 5 stars
Panther Pat sits down with Pat Palinkas, the first woman to play professional football. Early in the short, she recounts she was told that girls don’t play football, they play with dolls. The film, in a quite tongue-in-cheek way, uses dolls to animate her story in cutaways, complete with a football uniform and helmet for Barbie.
Pat became a placekick holder for the Orlando Panthers when her husband became their kicker. Immediately, she was attacked by other professional players, threatened that they would intentionally physically hurt her if she dared play in an actual game.
It’s clear from the start of the film that Pat has a personality that is too big to say no to. She’s passionate, joyful, and knows what she wants. I really liked her humor; though there were barriers keeping her from being treated like an ordinary football player, she kept her head up and didn’t carry that kind of hatred in her heart.
Before watching this film, I personally was unaware that a woman had ever played in the professional league. Director Ashley Brandon did a fantastic job educating about that historic moment while approaching it with lightness and care.
For more about the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival, visit: tribecafilm.com
For more about Tribeca Shorts: Whatever It Takes: tribecafilmshorts/whatever-it-takes-2026
For more about Cookie, Love: tribecafilm.com/films/cookie-love-2026
For more about White Belt: tribecafilm.com/films/white-belt-2026
For more about Theatre of Dreams: tribecafilm.com/films/theatre-of-dreams-2026
For more about The Dark Knot at the Center: tribecafilm.com/films/dark-knot-at-the-center-2026
For more about Run In Beauty: tribecafilm.com/films/run-in-beauty-2026
For more about Panther Pat: tribecafilm.com/films/panther-pat-2026
