HIROSHI TAKAHASHI, SCREENWRITER OF THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY THE RING, REVEALS THE TRICKS OF HORROR IN HIS MASTERCLASS
THE JURY – CATHERINE BREILLAT, MAŁGORZATA ZAJĄCZKOWSKA, BARRY PURVES -DESCRIBE THEMSELVES THROUGH THEIR WORKS
IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION, THE THIRD ITALIAN SHORT MOVIE: SELFIEsh FROM CSC OF ROME
And more: Volumina special program with Greenaway’s Ripopolare la Reggia preview, the Spanish short movies of Madrid en corto and the meeting between Ca’ Foscari Master students and the International Competition directors.
Venice, 16th March 2017. On 17th Friday, at the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival will take place one of the most awaited programs of the seventh edition: the Masterclass of Hiroshi Takahashi (8 P.M), internationally known as the screenwriter of the original The Ring trilogy. These movies completely changed the horror cinematography, reaching extraordinary success. During the masterclass, Takahashi will explain the mechanisms of fear; then, he will show the film Kyū shihaisha no Kyaroru (2011), inspired by the Lovercraft’s song “Carol of the Old Ones”. The main character is Miyuki, director of a cinematographic project for her degree. She asks to an admired actress to star in her movie. The film, 4th place in Eiga Geijutsu magazine’s 10 best movies of 2012 ranking, is a parody of the cinema schools and shows the essence of film production.
Tomorrow at 4 P.M, the International Competition will start with Diëgo Nurse’s Moi missi – Beautiful Woman from Hogent KASK Institute. This story is about Beyong, a young Latin transgender, who discovers and accepts herself. We will go on with Sicela Amanzi – Water, Please by Miu Godola, a young director of AFDA School from South Africa. Due to the drought that strikes a little village in Africa, Zoleka, a pious young woman, is forced to do anything in her power to save her sick sister. A dramatic situation in which the formula “everything will be fine” seems to be able to change the destiny of the two women. The French short film by Pierre-Alexandre Muller from the Nantes’ CinéCréatis Institute concerns a strong female character. Claire is a short film about a young woman who lives her pregnancy with distress and anguish, tormented by a painful memory that haunts her through the melody of a music box. This condition will bring her to no longer being able to distinguish reality from imagination, leaving the audience with bated breath. Ekaterina Volkova of CSC in Rome is in competition with SELFIEsh, an amusing comedy set in Rome. The protagonist of this short is Walter, who goes with his elderly mother around the city in search of cannabis, the only thing that could cure the pain that afflicts her. The film catapults the protagonist in an unexpected trip that will take him to rediscover the beauty of simplicity and the lightness of life, reminding the public to live the moment without getting lost to immortalize it in one click. The afternoon of the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival will end with the exciting and unexpected trip of another couple Sightseeing, created by Hungarian David Borbás from Budapest Metropolitan University. A man tormented by debts steals a taxi to scrape together some money, but then he will bump into Dunja, a young illegal immigrant who is on the run from Budapest to Vienna.
Another awaited event of the day is the Jury Special Program (6 p.m.), during which some works by the three judges of the competition will be screened. The eclectic French artist Catherine Breillat will present a series of excerpts from her films. Her work focuses mainly on sexuality and gender conflict; all her works are characterized by a personal and brave style. Małgorzata Zajączkowska is the second judge of the 7th edition of the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival. The Polish writer and actress, with director Marcin Bortkiewiczthe, will present the short film Drawn from Memory (2012), also exhibited at Cannes. The actress plays a woman suffering from senile dementia. The protagonist is convinced that she was a great actress and her niece decides to support her by playing some scenes that have shaped the history of cinema. Barry Purves, one of the most acclaimed British animators, will present an episode of the animated series Twirlywoos and the short film Plume (2011), an abstract labor with no dialogue in which doubts, anxieties and personal grief are condensed.
Volumina is a cultural association form Turin; it has been a partner of the festival since its beginning, assigning every year a special prize to the works of the International Competition. This year the festival will dedicate Volumina the special program Short Film Fest meets Volumina (at 3pm). The activity of Volumina is dedicated mainly to the realization of art books on cinema and music personalities. It blends both traditional crafting techniques and an innovative design. These techniques will be illustrated by the artistic director of Volumina, Domenico De Gaetano. On the stage of the Auditorium he will also present a preview of the backstage of Ripopolare la Reggia. Ripopolare la Reggia is a multi-media display -realized by Peter Greenaway in 2007- that begun a series of renovation of the Reggia of Venaria. In that occasion, the director was asked to fill the internal rooms of the museums which still had to be arranged. He decided for an installation which put en-scène the courtly life led at the savoy residence.
The Short Film Fest meets Madrid en Corto (at 11am) is a competition of short films produced by Spanish art directors; it is one of the tributes dedicated to Film Schools. The project started in 2005 and it is organized by ECAM (Escuela de Cinematografía y del Audiovisual de la Comunidad de Madrid) with the support of the Office of Culture and Tourism of the Madrid Region. ECAM is one of the most important film and audio-visual schools of the Iberian Peninsula and it promotes the projects of young Spanish art directors. The short films involved this year come from the latest three editions of the Madrid en corto, which always presents high qualities works, as those films confirm.
Gerardo Herrero, the art director of Safari, narrates of a massacre in a high school with great representational strength. Ficción, by Niguel Angel Cárcano, presents a marital crisis where it is up to the audience to seek the truth beyond the fictitious reality the characters create. Not the end, by César and Josè Esteban Allenda, is a moving story about love and time travels, with a wonderful screenplay. Alejandro Suarez directed El pescador, which explores both realism and science fiction as he narrates of a Hong Kong fisher, who is to catch something that is out of this world. Finally, Made in Spain is a funny stop motion animated short set on a sunny beach.
During the Short Meet Point (2pm), the students of the new Ca’ Foscari Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking will meet the art directors participating to the International Contest of the Festival. This will be an opportunity for the Master students to show three short films to their more experienced colleagues, to get some profitable advice and to start a discussion on today young film makers’ cinema.
