The Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival is ready to celebrate its tenth edition, which will take place from 7th to 10th October in respect of the current health regulations.
For this reason, alongside the historical location of Auditorium Santa Margherita, the festival will collaborate with other prestigious cultural institutions in Venice, where it will be possible to watch the scheduled works via stream or live. The anniversary edition is richer than ever with several prestigious guests, and a high-level election among the thirty short films competing in the International Competition,dedicated to students of film schools and universities all around the world.
The Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival represents the first event of its kind in Europe, since it is the first to be entirely conceived, organized and managed by a university. Moreover, the festival stays true to its mission, which is being an event created by young people to young people: they are in fact
the real protagonists. The Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival is as a matter of fact coincided as a professionally formative moment for Ca’ Foscari’s volunteer students, who always provide with new energy to the qualified organization of the Festival, which is led by experienced professionals,
coordinated by artistic and managing director Roberta Novielli.
The active participation of the students remains the main element of the Festival, because young people are involved in all the phases of its realization: from the catalogue to logistics, from press office to subtitles, from video group to distribution.
At the very core of the event is the International Competition, a selection of the best thirty short films directed in 2019 by either students or recent graduates from some of the most prestigious schools of cinema and universities around the world. More of 3.000 works from 111 different
countries were presented last year, while this year there are 27 competing countries, including pieces of work from African, Asian, American and European countries. These are very heterogeneous pieces that mix different techniques, styles and genres in a fresh way, ranging from fiction to documentary, and from animation to video-art. Beyond their differences, these works have something in common, which is the theme of separation, for instance from parents or professors or one’s birthplace.
The International Competition includes a First Prize for the best short film, the “Volumina” Special Mention for the best art film and the ‘Pateh Sabally’ Prize, assigned by the Municipality of Venice and dedicated to the theme of multi-ethnicity.
Alongside the International Competition there will also be special programs, events, exhibitions and masterclasses with international guests. One of these is the New African Cinema, a special program which explores African cinematography through three short films from Nigeria, Tanzania
and Kenya. They deal both with traditional and modern themes and they present strong and independent female protagonists, such as Naisula – Misfit by Karanja Ng’endo.
This year Siyabonga Mbele will represent South Africa at the Ca’ Foscari short film festival, with his short film “Moya”, which will take part in the International Competition. Siyabonga Mbele received the honorary degree in Film & Television at the University of Witwatersrand. Despite being a film maker, he also works as artistic director and operator.
Siyabonga owns a passion in telling stories to a vast audience, using several cinematic resources. MOYA (South Africa, 2019, Zulu, 15’35” fiction): a young woman, victim of an interior conflict, takes a deep interior journey in search for her own spirit. She will find Death in the spiritual world.