A Marathon inaugurates ShorTS International Film Festival

With the first 24h shorts comic contest the best comic strip will become a short film

In its old age ShorTS International Film Festival is broadening its horizons and becoming an incubator for creative ideas and creating a challenge for our professional comic artists. 

Trieste has been a set for a number of cinematic and television productions, climbing in public regard for its views and environment, one of which is to be the inspiration for a fantastical journey that jumps off the paper and into cinemas.

So, in this 18^th edition of the ShorTS International Film Festival, the schedule in Trieste from the 1^st to the 8^th of July is dedicated to short films and to the works of newcomers, attracting even more attention for a genre which is much loved by a diverse public. Also born in Trieste is a competition which we will see transition from paper to screen with the 24H Comic Contest; a free creative contest for artists who will be asked to illustrate 4 comic strip tables based on a screenplay that they will be assigned at some point during the organization of the festival. The screenplay will include dialogue, movement and details that the participants should utilize when designing their works, along with the necessary materials to aid the working process: pencils, card and indications on the location and on the physical attributes of the characters- all technical indicators on which to base the outline of the strip.

The competition will take place on Friday the 30^th June 2017 (from 10am to 10pm) and Saturday the 1^st July 2017 (from 9am to 9pm) in the cornices of the Castello San Giusto. The participants will have 24 hours in total to transform the screenplay into cartoons.

The 3 best works, judged by 4 professionals renowned worldwide for their comic strips (including Stefano Disegni and Agostino Traini), will not only be published on the pages of Il Piccolo, the daily Triestine paper, but will also be edited and animated with the help of the students of I.P.S. Galvani di Trieste using the comic motion technique. They will then be projected onto the big screen on the final evenings of the ShorTS International Film Festival.

The 24H Comic Contest is orgnanized in collaboration with Il Piccolo, the school of comics Grafite di Raimondo Pasin e Paola, Neopolis- lo spazio dell’immaginario and Elio tecno service  Other than the honour of publication and projection, the winners will also be awarded with supplies from our event partners, Neopolis – lo spazio dell’immaginario and Elio tecno service.

We remember that between the thousands of short film entrants this year, only 91 have been selected for the line up in our Maremettraggio section. The shorts come from 33 countries around the world and between these 18 are from Italy, which is 7 more that in 2016. In fact this year the submissions reached the outstanding quota of 4318 Shorts from 123 countries around the world. Some of these shorts came from extremely remote countries, or were prestigious participants which have already received awards from important International events. This increase in submissions, in the words of Chiara Valenti Omero, can be attributed to the Festivals increase of visibility to the public eye, due to new initiates and presentations, but also due to the festival’s history of renovation and research, which are our major strong points. Between the selected titles many are animated shorts, the perfect genre for the reinterpretation of realities which are difficult to express through other means.

This year the projections will again be free to view and will take place in Piazza Verdi from the 1^st to the 8^th of July 2017. All of the information and the submissions for the comic strip competition are available to view at the following web page www.maremetraggio.com/24h-shorts-comic-contest