ShorTS Development & Pitching Training for short film projects
Everything lies in knowing how to tell a story. In how you tell it, in the importance that story has for those who tell it and what it might have for those who listen to it. This year I decided to develop further the excellent, formative pitch training initiative with an introductory preparation phase that is fundamental: the development of the story. ShorTS Development & Pitching Training has thus become a type of workshop where stories are created and shared: ten projects participate in the first development phase, five are then chosen to explore the different possibilities of pitching seen as a professional tool for narrating the short narrative project to an audience of experts in the field to whom it is to be presented during ShorTS 2023. I am convinced that this three months’ work, dedicated to filmmakers ranging from Italy to the Middle East, via the Balkans, can give rise to new and exciting projects that we hope to see soon on festival screens, possibly during the programming of future ShorTS International Film Festivals in Trieste.
Massimiliano Nardulli
Curator, ShorTS Development & Pitching Training
Projects
LUCA SORGATO, BENIAMINO
Beniamino is a story of loyalty and abandonment. This film narrates about a part of the disgraced life of the protagonist, named Antonello and his friendship with Beniamino.
DANILO STANIMIROVIC, BRAZIL
In a provincial school in Serbia, a middle aged teacher prepares a group of little girls for a dance show in which actually she herself wants to participate.
LORENZO GONNELLI, CATENE
Grosseto, 1991. Davide, a young man who lives and works in a quarry, is involved in a kidnapping at the hands of Massimo, the owner. The relationship between the two is put in crisis when Davide discovers Massimo’s true intentions.
ANA CULUM, ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
This is a short animation about Iva and Iskra, ten-year-old best friends. Despite great love, there are some challenges standing in the way of their friendship embodied in Milo, a clumsy elephant constantly causing damage.
FILIP LAFAZANOVSKI, EVERGREEN
Lena, a thirteen-year-old girl, is on a school trip in the mountains in Macedonia. Away from her strict parents, she can’t find freedom neither with her friends after revealing that she plans to lose virginity on her first wedding night.
ARIADNI ANGELIKI THYFRONITOU LITOU, I‘M JEALOUS OF MY FATHER’S BITCH
The years go by in little Mairi’s father’s living room. Her depressed father’s love is a competition between her and his dog, Eri. Mairi is determined to defeat her disgustingly cute opponent, no matter the consequences.
GIDEON IMAGOR, THE LISTENER
Golan, a soldier serving in the Israeli intelligence unit, eavesdropping on private conversations of Munter, a palestinian freedom fighter, struggles between his father and colleagues’ expectations, and his own feelings.
GIULIANO FRATINI, M.
M. is working on his second movie. Due to production delays, he is forced to edit it in the night. One evening he leaves the studio and, due to the rain, he takes refuge in a telephone booth. Suddenly all time-space parameters are changing.
ALESSANDRA SALVOLDI, MINUTERIA
Two twin sisters with dwarfism have been running the religious store they inherited from their parents. During the frenzy of Holy Week, the conflict between the two explodes and becomes too big for their small space.
ILIJA CVETKOVSKI, TRIANGLE OF LOVE
Deniz, Nena, and Peter struggle to connect. Awkwardness ensues when Peter’s Airbnb guest, charismatic Alex, arrives. They hike to impress her. Deniz impresses Nena, rejecting Peter, and grows closer to Alex. After Alex leaves, Nena and Peter depart, forever changed.
