Filmmaker and T-Port TalentBridge alum Pepe Harder chatted to us ahead of his upcoming film premiere at Tirana International Film Festival. 

Hi Pepe! You took part in the T-Port TalentBridge at Cannes 2026, how was that experience for you? 

Having my film presented by T-Port at the Short Film Corner in Cannes was exciting, but the TalentBridge gave the experience a more personal dimension. It created a setting in which conversations happened naturally – not only about the film itself, but also about the work that might follow.

Meeting filmmakers from different countries was especially inspiring. Despite our different films and backgrounds, many of us were grappling with similar questions.

Did the TalentBridge teach you anything or introduce you to anyone that has helped you towards the next step in your film career? If so could you tell us about what happened? 

Through the TalentBridge, I had the opportunity to connect with people from across the international film industry and have conversations that went beyond the short film itself. Some of those conversations have continued since Cannes, particularly around Black Pill, my feature debut, which I am currently developing – a psychological drama about male self-optimisation, the desire to be desired and the gradual pull of online radicalisation.

What was the best thing that the TalentBridge gave you? 

Probably the realisation that there is no single right way to make films. I heard about very different approaches to developing, financing and getting a project made. There was something liberating in that.

Your film is now on its festival journey, what are you looking forward to from this process? 

I’m looking forward to sharing the film with audiences in different countries and discovering what they see in it. You spend so long inside a film that it is exciting when it begins to have a life beyond you. Our next stop is the Tirana International Film Festival.

Any other comments or thoughts? 

I’m drawn to characters who contradict themselves, and to ordinary situations that gradually tip into the strange, unsettling or absurd. In On the Leash, I explored how power and dependency shift beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary relationships. I want to push that tension further in my first feature.