8th edition of the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival from March 21st to 24th

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The 8th edition of the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival, the first European festival entirely conceived, organized and managed by a university, will be open on March 21st to 24th at the Auditorium Santa Margherita at the Auditorium Santa Margherita with the Ca’ Foscari Honorary Fellow title awarded to great American director Roger Corman who sent a video message to the audience and to the young directors from around the world whose films compete in the Festival.

Marco Sgarbi, Vice Provost for communciation and promotion of the university, and Roberta Novielli, artistic director of the festival, will give welcome addresses.

At 6pm one of the awaited guests of this edition Disney animator Robb Pratt will hold a masterclass for the audience of the festival, showing some of his most recent pieces.

This year the festival will also welcome British director Peter Greenaway for a lecture on little-known aspects of his work.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION: 30 FILMS COMPETING
This flagship project proved once again to be a great showcase in Italy to discover the best works of young directors who are enrolled in university or recently graduated from the most prestigious film universities, with very diverse 2,500 short films sent from around the world.
The 30 short films of the International Competition come from 26 countries, from the US to Australia, from Belarus to South Africa, from Costa Rica to Uzbekistan, from Indonesia to Colombia, from Hong Kong to India, and many other countries including Italy.

One of the recurring themes this year is the mother-son relationship - a universal theme that can be explored in many different ways as the most - as in Hungarian director Hakan Sagiroglu’s film Eric where a mother seeks her son and has to face her past, in South African director Mlu Godola’s The Life of Ana where the mother endangers her son’s life and will have to make difficult decisions to save him, more tragically in Mexican director Hugo Magaña’s Don’t Pass Through San Bernardino where a woman faces anything to learn the truth about her son’s death, or in the first short film from Kyrgyzstan participating in the competition, Evgenii Chistiakov’s Tash Kөmүr, where two young persons have to work with their families in an isolated coal mine. The Italian short film, Ludovico Di Martino’s Pipinara, focuses on two young thieves on the Roman seaside. The other Italian competing short film is Alain Parroni’s Adavede where looking for a charger becomes a pretext for a trip to the countryside and the suburbs that will bring back repressed memories. Together with works of fiction 3 documentaries and 3 animated movies participate in the competition.

The jury will award the Grand Prix to the best short film, the Levi Award for the best soundtrack, the Volumina special Mention for the best contribution to cinema as art and the “Pateh Sabally” Award given by the City of Venice for the work that will be able to best present multiethnicity and acceptance.
The winner of the fifth edition of the competition “Olga Brunner Levi” will be chosen in collaboration with the Fondazione Levi and of the second edition of the Music Video Competition.

THE JURY
The international Jury will include three outstanding personalities from the film industry, continuing a now established tradition: Italian director Roberta Torre, whose works have been nominated and received awards in the Italian film Festival David di Donatello and at the Venice Film Festival; Japanese director Hiroki Hayashi who started as Takeshi Kitano’s and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s assistant to then create his own production company and debuted as a director in 2005 with Rakuda Ginza; Polish director and documentary filmmaker Marcin Bortkiewicz, who presented his first fiction short film, Drawn from Memory, at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, followed by his first fiction feature film, Walpurgis Night, which received many awards.
The Special Jury’s Program will be a unique opportunity for the audience to meet the three artists and discover their careers through images and stories. Torre will show selected clips of her latest movie Riccardo va all’inferno (2017), Hayashi will present his short film Soul Journey – To the future of Nanto (2015), whereas Bortkiwicz will screen his documentary film Early Learning (2009).
Another jury will appoint the Levi Award - made of Luisa Zanoncelli, Roberto Calabretto, Gabriele Roberto and Massimo Contiero.

SPECIAL PROGRAMS
The special programs are once again offering a diverse and intense schedule with hommages, focuses, workshops and lectures.
British director Peter Greenaway who became famous in the 1970s for his provocative films characterized by their refined aesthetics such as the Draughtsman's Contract  (1982) which competed in Venice, Drowning by Numbers (1988) which was awarded in Cannes, the controversial feature The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), but also with his recent Goltzius and the Pelican Company (2014) and art installations, will hold a lecture.
American animator Robb Pratt who worked for the Disney Company will hold a masterclass on the most interesting aspects of his work, presenting CARMAN - The Road Rage Anti-Hero, his recent animated series that was conceived as an animation tutorial. Pratt has worked on classic features of the Disney Company such as Pocahontas, Tarzan or Hercules and created short films as an independent animator.

The screening devoted to Indian animation director Gitanjali Rao will include 5 short films. The focus on Japanese director Shutaro Oku who has been mixing cinema and theatre using the latest technologies will show a world premiere of Nigorie, which was shot in Tokyo and Venice. East Asia Now will present recently produced experimental short films produced, whereas the Dong Film Fest will be a bridge between Italy and China.

Ca’ Foscari University of Venice is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year and the Short Film Festival will present the winner of the film competition “Tell the 150 years of Ca’ Foscari in 150 seconds” and will screen a premiere of Riccardo De Cal’s film Nel cuore muto del divino on Carlo Scarpa’s restoration of the Aula Baratto, in the university. Additionally two Ca’ Foscari student will show their short films: Tommaso Giacomin with Angelo’s Folly, a mockumentary on the 150th celebrations, and Jacopo Renzi with Come se non fosse mai successo.

Giannalberto Bendazzi will hold an animation workshop and present the work Animazione. Una storia globale. Lobagge, ironique shorts on Italian independent cinema, will also be presented. The conclusion of the first edition of the Master’s degree programme in Fine Arts in Filmmaking at Ca’ Foscari will be celebrated with students’ screenings: video-tutorials on how to show respect to Venice as a tourist, the collective project Dedalus and three graduation short films, Viola, Teatro dei piombi and Lin-Da.

We will take a look back with Fantastica scienza, early films from the beginning of the 20th century devoted to science. Lo sguardo sospeso, the program devoted to Italian video-art curated by Elisabetta Di Sopra, is back and will focus on the transitional quality of reality and on the relationship between man and nature. The VideoConcorso Pasinetti will show booktrailers including the Video-oke! game, karaoke entering cinema. The winning films of the “Olga Brunner Levi” award, made by high school students from around the world and devoted to women in music, will be screened as well as the winners of the Music Video Competition.

FINAL SHOW
During the last evening of the festival, Saturday March 24th, Simona and Carlo Truzzi, world respected shadow artists, will create incredible silhouettes simply using their hands, a screen and light.

THE POSTER
The Festival’s poster was created by Giorgio Carpinteri for the second year in a row. The Italian illustrator, cartoonist and painter has worked on an image from Aquatlantic, his upcoming graphic novel, representing an imaginary city between the Sea and the East, two characteristic elements of Venice with a subtle homage to cinema with the character dressed in white moving in a series of film frames.

The awards will be created by glass artist Alessandro Mandruzzato, whose works can be seen in galleries and private collections around the world, from Milan to New York, from Dubai to Moscow.

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