Presentation

Objectives of the Festival

For a film festival, the launch of the 20^th consecutive edition not only means the consolidation of a strong identity, but it also shows its capacity to renew and expand itself by exploring new realities and challenging itself with new frontiers. For this reason, ShorTS IFF continues to look for new cinematic horizons to explore and to reflect upon. The Festival has always had the aim of promoting youth and international Italian cinema thanks to rich-quality program regarding both the film content and the planned side cultural activities. ShorTS also aims to raise awareness of the genre of short films to an increasingly young and diverse public; turning its attention to children and teens with a whole section dedicated to them. 2019 will be a year of innovation for ShorTS and aims to delve more into the new frontier of virtual reality technology, which was included for the first time in the previous edition and met with much success. Workshops, various cultural events and chances for meetings and discussion will frame the showings. For the festival, it has always been fundamental to be recognized as a confluence of professionals in the sector and young emerging creators; a place where foundations for future collaborations can be made.

Sections of the festival: news and confirmations

In the Maremetraggio section, the best shorts from all over the world which have won awards in the most prestigious of international film festivals over the course of 2018 will be in competition. They will compete for the prestigious award of €5,000 decided by a selected panel.

Looking towards growth and development, ShorTS intends to expand the scope of the Nuove Impronte section, going beyond the well-established research of emerging talents in Italian cinema.

The Shorter Kids’n’Teens section has been reconfirmed for its 4^th year, which will be dedicated to children aged 6 to 15 years. The panel will be made up of 200 youngsters who will be joined by the students who, over the course of the year, took part in the cinema workshop (Cinema in italics) organized by the Maremetraggio Association alongside some schools.

Another section that will be reconfirmed is that dedicated to Virtual Reality, ShorTS Virtual Reality. After its debut in the last edition and the great success it received, the reconfirmation of this competitive section will have the aim of pushing the boundaries compared of the past edition, both in terms of the quantity of shorts proposed and the locations dedicated to their use by the public. As such, the aim of this section is to create a convergence of industry experts for opportunities to meet and discuss in order to deepen the relationship between cinema and new technologies.

The festival will also award the Conferma award to the creator whose way has validated the talent shown at the beginning of their career. There is also the Prospettiva award, which, as always, will go to a young actor or actress.

ShorTS Hub

In addition to the usual evening screenings of the shorts in Piazza Verdi and the feature films in Teatro Miela, this year ShorTS IFF broadens it program by also proposing a series of meetings open to journalists and the public who can see the directors of the works in competition as protagionists. Workshops will be held with industry professionals, during which topics relating to the economic-productive aspect of the sector will be discussed, regarding both the new frontiers and new scenarios of cinematographic language.

These meetings will take place in the very central Piazza della Borsa, where ShorTS IFF will prepare a space dedicated to all the activities and side events of the festival and, above all, will set up the VR room for the viewing of short films in virtual reality. ShorTS IFF will be the second film festival in Italy, after Venice Film Festival, to organize a competitive section reserved for short films using VR.

EXTRA ShorTS

After the success received in the first two editions of the marathon dedicated to the world of comics, the 24HR ShorTS Comics Marathon will also be presented again in 2019. It is a contest open to young cartoonists and professionals who will try their hand at creating a comic book in 24 hours.

With our attention always turned towards the social, ShorTS IFF will once again bring the cinema inside Trieste Casa Circondariale with a number of detainees who will form the panel and that will present the Oltre il Muro award to the best Italian short.

As in previous years, ShorTS will take the opportunity to turn its gaze towards international horizons by focusing on the cinematography of a foreign country in order to get closer to a new world and discover different ways of producing films. For 2019, Iceland will be the focal-point, thanks to the collaboration with the Reykjavík International Film Festival, which will have the task of selecting some of the best Icelandic shorts that screened during the festival and dedicated evening screenings.

Moreover, ShorTS Pitching Training will also be re-confirmed after the success of the last edition. The workshop, organized in collaboration with NISI MASA, the European Network for Young Cinema dedicated to mainly European schools, represents an opportunity for young directors with their own project to practice the preparation of an effective and persuasive pitch, side by side with big names in the international film industry.

Last but not least, in 2019 there will be the ‘cinematographic walks’ of Esterno / Giorno; a project realized by the Casa del Cinema in Trieste. Thanks to the virtual technology, those who participate will be transported to where great movies such as Il ragazzo invisibile, La migliore offerta, Il Padrino were shot, as well as well-known RAI tv series such as La Porta Rossa, thanks to the virtual reconstruction of otherwise inaccessible film sets.