Archive for category: 2020

The fourth free entry contest for comic artists, in a brand-new hybrid version live from Trieste and online via video conferencing.

 For the fourth consecutive year cinema meets the comic strip at ShorTS International Film Festival 2020. The Trieste film festival this year is to be held online from 4 to 12 July and will repeat, also in this its 21^st year, the 24 Hours ShorTS Comics Marathon.

A free entry contest for artists of all ages who want to become involved in an actual art marathon during which, in just 24 hours, they have to produce a comic strip short of at least 4 inked and/or coloured boards. The winning comic strip will then be published and distributed free of charge, first on the social network of the festival and then on paper in a book with complimentary distribution.

The event this year is to be held in a brand new hybrid version live at the Casa del Cinema in Trieste, for a maximum of 10 participants, and online via video conferencing, where participants from all over Italy (up to a maximum of 20 people) can take part via the Web. The date with the Comics Marathon is for Friday 10 and Saturday 11 July at 4 pm at the Casa del Cinema in Trieste and online. Participation in the contest is free of charge and open to a maximum number of 10 participants live and 20 virtually, who can enrol via the event’s official website www.maremetraggio.com.

After big names such as Laura Scarpa, Lorenzo Pastrovicchio, Sio, Giopota, Dr. Pira, Menotti and Ilaria Palleschi, this year there will again be a new and outstanding jury to judge the works, made up of art and film experts. Specifically, the 24 Hours ShorTS Comics Marathon jury for 2020 will be Trieste’s Mario Alberti, alongside Vittoria VicMac Macioci, Giulio Macaione and director Giancarlo Soldi, figures representing an actual link between the world of film and that of comics.

Mario Alberti is an artist, illustrator and screenwriter from Trieste. In 1993 he joined the staff of Nathan Never for Sergio Bonelli Editore. Since 2007 he has produced various covers for DC Comics, Marvel and IDW and in 2009 published for Marvel the miniseries Spider Man & X Men, later followed by Spider Man & The Fantastic Four. In 2009 he worked on issue 600 of Amazing Spider Man. In 2017 he designed the first album of the new series Bandasenzanima, spin-off of the Dragonero series by Luca Enoch and Stefano Vietti. Again with Vietti he produced the first album of the new Angie Digitwin series for Panini Comics. 2018 saw the issue of Tex – Cinnamon Wells with writing by Chuck Dixon and his participation in the Panini Angie Digitwin project, producing the artwork for the zero issue and the covers.

Vittoria VicMac Macioci, born in Rome in 1991, has worked on a character design themed anthology published by 3DTotal and on various projects in Italy, France and the USA. They include Gravure of Altrofumetto, Melagrana of Attaccapanni Press and Warm Blood written by Josh Tierney. She is the artist behind the French comic Gravity Level written by Lorenzo Palloni and published in Italy by Saldapress as Desolation Club. Alongside her work as artist she teaches character design at the international visual development school Idea Academy in Rome.

Giulio Macaione, born in Catania in 1983, made his debut in 2005 with the short Mortén, winner of the competition Otto tavole per Mondo Naif organised by Kappa Edizioni. Again with Kappa he published the graphic novels The Fag Hag and Innamorarsi a Milano, both to texts by Massimiliano De Giovanni. With Comma 22 he published Ofelia, also translated in France by Edition Physalis. With Renbooks he published I colori del vicino. In 2016 he published his first graphic novel for BAO Publishing, Basilicò. In 2018 he published his new graphic novel for BAO Publishing, Stella di mare. In the same year he produced for US publishers BOOM! Studios the graphic novel Alice from dream to dream, brought to Italy by BAO Publishing with the title Alice di sogno in sogno.

Winner of top-level international prizes such as the Industrial Film Award of New York and the Creative Film Award of Chicago, director Giancarlo Soldi made his debut behind the camera in 1992 with the film Nero written by Tiziano Sclavi and starring Sergio Castellitto, Chiara Caselli and Hugo Pratt. Always seeking out new idioms, in 1998 he made the series Alex, indagini su mondi segreti. In 2013 he filmed the documentary Come TEX Nessuno Mai, distributed by Sergio Bonelli Editore. In 2015 his documentary Nessuno Siamo Perfetti, about Tiziano Sclavi, obtained a special mention at the Nastri d’Argento. In 2016 it was the turn of Cinque mondi, documentary presented at the Festa del Cinema in Rome. In 2019 he made the docufilm Diabolik sono io, written with Mario Gomboli, and another documentary, Cercando Valentina. Il Mondo di Guido Crepax, an exploration of the visionary world of Guido Crepax and his most popular creation.

A real “festival within a festival”, with two juries made up of kids aged 6 to 10 and teens aged 11 to 15, who this year
can take part from all over Italy.

A date online with two afternoons dedicated to shorts for kids and teens to be judged by the very young jury members of ShorTS 2020.

Little big cinema for little big jury members. The name is Shorter Kids’n’ Teens and it is the section of ShorTS International Film Festival dedicated to the very young, as part of the film event that this year is to arrive on the Web from 4 to 12 July 2020 from Trieste thanks to technical support from MYmovies.

A real “festival within a festival”, Shorter Kids’n’Teens is made up of two separate juries with child and teen members, aiming at spreading knowledge of the seventh art also to young audiences through a section devised especially for them within the historic Trieste event. Even in these difficult times, ShorTS International Film Festival wants the future generations to be able to continue to grow, cultivating their passions and interests with this event tailored to them, by offering an online version of this historic section that targets the very young and in which this year kids and teens from all over Italy can take part.

Once again this year the section is to be divided into two age groups, with two separate juries: the Kids section, dedicated to shorts for children aged 6 to 10, and the Teens section with works for those aged 11 to 15 years old. The youngsters themselves will make up the juries that are to decide on the winners of the section. The 2020 selection covers works from all over the world, ranging from animation to current event shorts and offering stories through which the children can enjoy laughter and emotions, fall in love and pause for thought.

The younger set this year can join in with Shorter Kids’n’ Teens from home, while still feeling part of a group and taking an active part in the project. Using the most sustainable delivery method, riders are to bring the young participants in the section the participation kit: a personalised pizza box, “pizza” also being the Italian word for the traditional can used to store film stock, containing the Festival t-shirt, the slip for voting their favourite short, a card for colouring and a gift offered by EstEnergy and Gruppo Hera, also main partners of the Festival this year.

The Shorter Teens selection is scheduled to be held online on MYmovies on Tuesday 7 July at 6 pm, where the young participants can watch free of charge the screening of shorts for teens aged 11 to 15 and vote for the best. On Wednesday 8 July at 6 pm it will be the turn of Shorter Kids: an afternoon of shorts for children aged 6 to 10, during which the young jury members will choose the winning short. Registering with the jury in order to take part in the event is via the Festival’s official website.

A special online masterclass held by Saverio Costanzo, the acclaimed director of the TV series My Brilliant Friend 

ShorTS International Film Festival, organised by Associazione Maremetraggio, to be held online this year from 4 to 12 July 2020, announces the Online Masterclass given by Saverio Costanzo, acclaimed director of the TV series My Brilliant Friend.

The event, free of charge and open to the public, is to take place online on Zoom on Thursday 9 July: details of the masterclass and enrolment will be given out shortly on social media and the Festival’s official website.

“During the online masterclass we will discuss with Saverio Costanzo his inspirations and how his original and introspective viewpoint as a filmmaker developed”, explained Maurizio di Rienzo and Chiara Valenti Omero, directors of ShorTS International Film Festival- “and which focus on theatrical nuances expressed by bodies and souls set within contexts ‘out of this world’. A Palestinian family held hostage by an intrusive Israeli patrol (Private, Golden Leopard prize at the 2004 Locarno International Film Festival and Silver Ribbon for best first feature). A Jesuit isolated among his doubts and vocation in a Venice convent (In Memory of Me). The ring of solitude and lack of communication filled with fear, disillusion and secrets inhabited for years by a couple who later become soulmates (The Solitude of Prime Numbers). The confines of a New York home with the conflicting approaches to child-rearing of two young parents (Hungry Hearts, Coppa Volpi at the 2014 Venice Film Festival for lead actors Alba Rohrwacher and Adam Driver). The studio of a psychotherapist who is in turn in a critical situation (three seasons of the series In Treatment). A Naples brimming with quintessential feminine emotions reworked with powerful sensitivity beyond the original structure of the book (the two seasons of the series My Brilliant Friend). Film locations with architectural details, open to extreme emotions and in which the natural link between remarkable performances and solid directing is highlighted”.

Saverio Costanzo is also to receive the Cinema del Presente 2020 prize, an award through which ShorTS International Film Festival endorses and showcases the extraordinary talent of this Italian film director.

“I’m very honoured to receive this award from the splendid city of Trieste”, said director Saverio Costanzo, “a crossroads of cultures and ideas, which offers, through its Festival, different and vital cinematic viewpoints while maintaining its twenty-year-old tradition and presenting images of the present whose strength is often rooted in the past. The specific focus by ShorTS on short-length films is important and highlights the mission of shorts, that of launching new narratives necessary for the cinema of the future”.

Born in Rome in 1975, Saverio Costanzo is one of the most admired filmmakers on the Italian film scene. In 2004 he directed his first feature film Private, winner of the Golden Leopard award and the prize for best lead actor at the Locarno International Film Festival and later released in over twenty-five countries.

In summer 2006 he made In Memory of Me, filmed on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice and selected to compete at the Berlinale in 2007. 2010 was the year of his third feature film, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, taken from the novel of the same name by Paolo Giordano which sold two million copies in Italy and was translated into more than thirty languages. The film competed at the 67^th Venice Film Festival.

In 2014 he directed Hungry Hearts starring Alba Rohrwacher and Adam Driver. The film was presented in competition at the Venice Film Festival where it won two Coppa Volpi awards for the performances of the two lead actors. Costanzo then directed for Sky Cinema the Italian adaptation of In Treatment Seasons 1, 2 and 3, the HBO series of the same name taken from the Israeli format created by Hagai Levi. In 2018 he directed the first two seasons of the Rai Fiction-HBO series My Brilliant Friend, taken from the first two books of the four-part trilogy written by Elena Ferrante and published in Italy by Edizioni E/O.