Archive for category: 2016

Friday 08 july – Day 08

People who come, people who go; in these extremely hot summer days our festival is just a total snowballing of meetings and appointments.

Our location in Piazza Verdi, just a stones through from the see, combines the classic and grandiose aspects of the theatre from which it takes its name with the thousands of scintillating images brought to us by the big screen.

Specialists, workers, young collaborators and photographers are provide the colourful, lively confetti of a party that is also restarting.

We find ourselves once again with an old friend of our festival, director and screenwriter Stefano Viali, who presents his short Fatti osceni in luogo pubblico as an additional event.

In an almost sci-fi setting, in Trieste, we imagine a society in the not too distant future where non-EU nationals make up the majority of the population.

In this setting we focus on the private goings on of a woman whose apartment has been burgled. Stefano Viali constructs an atmosphere of constant tension which then flows into the poetic final message; a sort of affectionate warning in the face of a world that is constantly becoming more ethnically mixed.

The long trail of the Maremetraggio section then starts with Giulio Mastromauro’s Nuvola, in which two totally different constellations collide: an old man defeated by life and a tiny creature dropped off like a parcel.

In a story that prioritises silences over words, we discover how, even during the most withering parts of our lives, hope and a spark of existential purity can return.

We always think of marriage as a moment of spiritual and physical harmony, an orchid laden with petals ready to split in two. Unfortunately, in some countries of our strange world, weddings represent a tyrannical institution, an unacceptable violence, a true moral and physical slap in the face for free will. This is what Omid Khalid talks about in an anti-historical way in Dark to Dark.

We keep our shocked gaze on the world of female adolescence: a shell which opens up little by little, very often subjected to the standing freezer of the outside world.

Agata Wojcierowska’s Gownojady is not just the story of a scientist father and a daughter who isn’t able to accept his harshness; it is also a fantastical allegory filled with a lake-like smog. Like the crabs molesting the protagonist, the claws of life can represent an obstacle that is also very painful.

Here now we have the archetypical cartoon in Martinez Lara and Cano Méndez’s Alike, in which the curious and spindly characters muse over the meaning of life.

The paradigm of a rural environment required by Davide Minnella for Il potere dell’oro rosso is, however, completely Italian; a tasteful juxtaposition between the world of Puglia and the world below the equator. Naturally everything comes together in a pleasing comedy of manners.

Two totally different themes, sporting passion and the spectre of war, live side by side in Ursula Meier’s Tišina mujo, which precisely gathers the risks and counterbalances of the adolescent nest.

In Sous tes doigts, the feminine cinematic eye of French director Marie-Christine Courtès enables us to get to know the relationships of populations for from our own owing to struggle and memory. Very often this expressive search contains visual rhapsodies which talk about myth, fate and the eternal.

The following work, Richard Card’s Zawadi, again uses to precise narrative resources; a work for images which totally respect the land whence they come: Kenya.

A cinematographic work from four hands, Mangiasciutti and Loi’s Dove l’acqua con altra acqua si confonde, is a sort of elegy of swimming and of water as a protective element which is so descriptively convincing that we could concretely smell and taste the chlorine in the pool.

Adolescence once again returns to the fore, a thousand cinematographic mirrors that re-establish different backstories and life moments amongst themselves. Ziya Demirel’s Sali has moments of pure emotion and transports us to Turkey, to Istanbul, through the eyes of a beautiful and curious teenager.

As always when the evening becomes night, we don’t mind a few entertaining shorts which, besides, help us to digest what we have seen previously. Lawrence Rowell’s La colina only needs two minutes of narration to catapult us into its animated world, where the elderly of Barcelona life calmly and there’s no room for melancholy.

Much more demanding is the metropolitan metaphor of La Valse mécaniquem in which gangly and skeletal animated characters perambulate in anticipation of a perhaps imminent moral release.

We conclude with a totally feminine production: Thoranna Sigurdardottir’s Zelos. No-one other than a woman can tell the story of another woman, even if we are here in the surrounds of the sci-fi genre.

The tale of a female figure who purchases a clone of herself is truly worrying; a small domestic nightmare which at times reminds us of Ira Levin’s old fantasy novel, The Stepford Wives.

A conclusion, therefore, of an extremely high level, and it’s a great pleasure to catch up with the festival’s guests and spectators after the viewing, all of whom are fundamental building blocks for the event.

A glass of crème de menthe that’s greener than green is posed alone on a small table…it’s high summer, and ShorTS International Film Festival 2016 has run its course.

Riccardo Visintin

Thursday 07 july – Day 07

Snapshots of a festival. Many hands to shake, people to meet for the first time or see again after a long separation; a luna-park of sensations that are perhaps impossible to describe.

It’s very hot, perhaps even extremely hot, and appropriate refreshment can be provided by the evening’s screenings. Oh, the infinite seductive power of cinema!

A literal departure…with the car crash of professional ups and downs of the protagonist in Michael Binz’s Herman the German…comes from Germany and allows us to laugh humorously at the fears and idiosyncrasies that can be unleashed in the bizarre corridor of the human psyche.

The cinematographic colour of the evening veers decidedly towards pitch black with Yasir Kareem’s Kingdom of Garbage.

We are faced with a piercing series of events in which children are social martyrs and every right they have is ignored.

Tasty like a tortilla and inebriating like a glass of sangria, here a Mexico populated by singing animals comes to the screen in Los ases del corral.

Directed by the young pair of Sevilla and Báez and centred around a highly colourful jukebox, a singular, chilli flavoured tension unfolds.

Bringing with it the solemn cadence of a Greek tragedy is Russian director Taya Zubova’s Ryba Moya…before our eyes is an authentic visual symphony which talks about pregnancy, where water becomes the narrative modus operandi in a succession of beautiful images of multi-coloured nights without darkness and dances, right up until the final catharsis of a new birth.

Theatre – or rather one-room cinema – next in Chris Chalklen’s Draft Eight, where, in a bourgeois salon reminiscent of the style of Harold Pinter, a character confronts his own regrets, sustaining a captivating verbal architecture.

In Italy, this duplicity could have been brilliantly acted by our own best stage actors, such as Glauco Mauri and Roberto Sturno, in the desire of creating a small game of quotations.

An animated short, Siniša Mataić’s Penjači transports us into a world of adrenaline, where two young climbers on a constant search for thrills end up having to seriously reconsider their own existence.

We feel sincere affection when confronted by a sweet old lady who takes scrupulous care of a public toilet. In her little world of simple people, the sense that there is a magnificent granny trunk overflowing with precious objects persists. All of this is executed with aplomb in Laura Luchetti’s animated short, Bagni.

The atmosphere of a prison turns all kinds of conventions and habits on their heads, obliterating personal microcosms and forcing you to stay loyal with instances you had never previously considered.

With a wise helping of emotions, the French auteur Laurent Scheid tells the story of these expressive knots in Tout va bien.

Brando De Sica is notoriously a young son of art, but he already demonstrates an understanding of the narrative possibilities of the cinematographic medium. His short Non senza di me also has the merit of bringing us a good dramatic effort from Max Tortora, an actor generally known for his ironic works. The ending is truly unexpected in this truly saucy thriller.

Next to be shaken up is the theme of physical disability, and of the legitimate needs of this delicate portion of the population. Hole, by Canadian Martin Edralin, is a Swan Lake from uneven shores.

Desecrating political satire is proposed by Frenchman Aurélien Laplace in Une poignée de main historique. As always happens when the characters in question are very well known, the laughs come from observing how history can hold very witty gags, both small and large.

Quando a Roma nevica by Andrea Baroni brings us back to a wholly Italian context through a vibrantly violent series of events set in a less picture-postcard version of the Italian capital.

Scenes of brutal beatings and agitated cries with a message behind them: there is no interpersonal reality that doesn’t connect sooner or later to that community in an inexorable societal chain.

A light with beautiful purple hues illuminates a Piazza Verdi still brimming with filmgoers, whilst many other images have just been seen at Cinema Ariston; without doubt they will be talked about again.

Claude Chabrol, who is perhaps one of the best known directors from the French New Wave, said that sharing cinema as perfect as a cup of strawberries is demanding when it comes to having the correct portion of whipped cream.

We could not agree more and, at the same time, we too invite you to live the main part of ShorTS International Film Festival, Trieste, with us.

Let the screenings go on! Next stop: Friday night.

Riccardo Visintin

Wednesday 06 july – Day 06

Whilst Italy’s footballing excitement provides a freeing catharsis, we have the pleasure of descending on a Piazza Verdi completely packed with spectators.

It’s always worth spending a couple of moments observing this colourful human garden, where people curiously flick through the festival’s publications whilst the children among us anxiously wait for the screening of animated cartoons.

We begin in a private, domestic setting with Y mañana navidad, where an ageing man choses a friendly lunch as the occasion to reveal his own partner’s betrayal. Director Héctor Rull only needs nine minutes to stigmatise a harsh interpersonal theme.

Have you ever thought about the suggestion that water is a living element in which we can lose ourselves; almost a redemptive oasis that helps us survive the cut thrust of every-day life? This is well and truly achieved in Sarah Van Den Boom’s Dans les eaux profondes, with a series of events which links homosexuality to the living pulpit present in the embryos of each of us.

One never expects the interpersonal relationships that develop between people outside of a nucleonic family. The maid in Clara Roquet’s El adiós understands, after a struggle, that her life inside of what seemed to be a protected nest will never be the same again.

Excuse us an outburst of Italian pride, but we must confess our unconditional love for the grand theatrical and cinematographic traditions of the Italian south; how could one not define the efforts of actor Gianfelice Imparato, already appreciated on the big screen in Il divo and Gomorra, as simply extraordinary.

As the protagonist of Emanuele Palamara’s La smorfia, the excellent Imparato plays the role of a celebrated Neapolitan opera singer who’s suffered a stroke; through his difficult day, the protagonists share the burning memories of a sweet artistic past and the intolerance that comes from being with an overly controlling wife.

Only at the end do we discover the true affection of our female protagonist. The public’s appreciation for this short is clear to see.

The omnipresence of the aquatic element again comes to the fore in a tale about the resourcefulness of humanity when faced with mortality; and accurate use of silence and sounds much more than acting, these factors allow Polish filmmaker Paulina Skibińska to overcome her own artistic challenge, entitled Obiekt.

Moments of pure emotion, extraordinary direction of the actors and a message disarming in its directness: war is condemned in all of its guises and regardless of from where it comes.

Props to Sandra Ceccarelli, the astonished spectator of scenes of blood and death; her role as an elderly voice actress sees her emulate one of the great names of Italian theatre – the great Marzia Ubaldi.

We thought that cinematic clerical satire had already seen its best days thanks to the great Pupi Avati (remember his 1975 classic “La mazurka del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone”), but we are now faced with something just as exhilarating.

We are, of course, alluding to Michel Zarazi’s Sous les soutanes, where an eccentric group of bungling nuns find themselves having to save a chubby monsignor from the trap of a land mine.

A totally different context comes next with the greying, professional downward spiral of the two labourer protagonists in Mamci i udice…almost neo-realist direction introduces us to an environment where the path to change is always littered with obstacles.

Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s Prends-moi tackles a delicate subject, earnestly telling the story of how the disabled have the right to a proper sex life. The hospital setting establishes a daily life dripping with despair but also extreme social demands.

Davide Salucci’s Il principe is a truly entertaining animated short, which retells the dear old legend of a knight on his trusty steed in an ironic and paroxysmal way.

Davide nails the visual technics, which resemble a painting, and the surreal scenography where modern buildings and airports go hand in hand with drawbridges and Medieval castles.

The beautiful power of horror films is like a black widow constantly waiting to strike! Try to see Ignacio F. Rodó’s Tuck Me In and discover how just one minute of narration is enough to turn the atmosphere to ice.

A few more shivers are absolutely necessary in this season burning fire. We linger to talk with a few of the festival’s guests – priceless moments of international communication.

Next stop: Thursday evening.

Riccardo Visintin