Lea Stern
15 minute short film
LOGLINE: Taken to live in a women’s shelter without explanation, ten-year-old Nora tries to understand what her mother is not telling her about her father.
Written, Directed and Produced by Lea Stern
Produced by Ciara Schaefer
Director of Photography Sophie Clarke
Editor Adam Klug
Sound Design Yasen Kirilov
At its heart, Splinters is about the relationship between a mother and daughter set against the breakdown of a marriage. The story unfolds through the eyes of a ten-year-old girl who is kept in the dark about why her mother has brought her and her sister to a women’s shelter.
With Splinters, I wanted to shed light on the lives we rarely see. Rather than telling a dark or overtly traumatic story about domestic violence, I wanted to approach the subject from a quieter perspective. The film is not loud or disturbing; it lives in the small moments of confusion, pain, and love that surround family breakdown. In many ways, it became the film I wish I’d seen as a teenager, when I felt ashamed of my parents’ separation.
LEA STERN’s short film SPLINTERS is inspired by her time in a women’s shelter as a child. The story has found a wide resonance ahead of its release: the script was a finalist at the 2026 Directed by Her screenplay awards and won first prize at the 2025 Accelerator pitching competition.
She won the jury award with her first short film STERN at the Video & Filmtage and screened her student short Wednesday Night at DIFF’S first frames competition.
Originally from Vienna, Lea now works in Dublin as an Executive Assistant at Wild Atlantic Pictures.
