VII EDITION
The CINIT Music Video Competition, organized this year in collaboration with CINIT – Cineforum Italiano, is now at its seventh edition, and is once again presenting a selection of the best music videos directed by students from universities and film schools from all over the world. Ten finalists have been selected, representing nine countries, from Australia to South Africa. The winner will be chosen by a professional jury formed by producer and film director Giovanni Bedeschi, journalist Alice D’Este and CINIT board member Giordano Giordani.
Johuš Matuš – Zpívají – Johus Matus – Songsinging
Directors: Julie Černá, Johana Novotná
Czech Republic, 2’02”
The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague
SYNOPSIS: This animated music video by Johus Matus will calmly accompany us into his pop-rural world filled with nature, horses, dogs and polyporuses. While travelling by train we can witness Songsinging as an attempt to find a brief moment, which may or may not last forever.
PROFILES: Julie Černá was born in 2001. She comes from a big family and is inspired by gardens, widespread corn fields, animals, direct sunlight, TV, cheap jokes and the security of her household. She also has a background in graphic design and is currently studying Animation & Film at Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. Her animated movies were screened at several festivals across Europe and she was awarded the Prague Music Video Awards for the best music video. Johana Novotná, born 1993, photography department at FAMU (2013-2017) and New Media department at AVU (2018-2022). Her work is characterized by media diversity and intermediality. She uses humor, exaggerations, and absurdities and through these she communicates serious topics of human existence and life ambitions in the duality of city and countryside, center and periphery, rationality and mysticism, purity and corruption.
Galion
Directors: Benjamin Geyer, Elisabeth Geyer
Germany, 3’08”
Bauhaus Universität Weimar
SYNOPSIS: Galion is a collaged animation that accompanies Benshi’s song by the same name. Stormy images move in wild dance to fiery soundscapes, in an atmospheric visual play of constant discovery. The video captures the unifying feeling of “Sehnsucht” in its collaged images of different countries and cultures.
PROFILES: Studio Liebe is a young German artist duo composed of Elisabeth and Benjamin Geyer. The two playfully explore the broad fields of film, animation and music, and their presentation in space. Their paths first crossed while studying communication design at THWS Würzburg under Henning Rogge Pott, where they developed their interdisciplinary understanding and their playful approach to animation. From there, they moved together to Weimar for a media art and design master’s degree at Bauhaus University. Their first animated film Ermo (2021) gained great recognition and was shown at ITFS, Kurzsüchtig and various other festivals in Germany and abroad. The music-film project was funded by Initiative Musik, a program of the German Ministry of Culture for aspiring young artists. A year abroad at the Escola das Artes of the Universidade Catolica Porto, strengthened Studio Liebe’s free artistic tendencies, where they participated in two major exhibitions in Portugal, among the others. Their second animated film Galion takes place this time in the Atlantic Ocean.
Zeus
Director: Nicco Nn
Poland, 4’05”
University of Łódź
SYNOPSIS: A family of Ukrainian war refugees tries to run away from reality between the past and the future.
PROFILE: Nicco Nn is an independent filmmaker. Nicco is interested in philosophy but his main interest is directed towards human beings. Nicco’s passion for music videos came from his fascination with interpreting text and music, searching for other meanings and playing with form. In the meantime, Nicco paints oil paintings and composes music.
Remember: Pilot
Director: Luyanda Sosibo
South Africa, 3’47”
University of Kwazulu-Natal
SYNOPSIS: Life is a journey on which great emphasis is put to make it seem as if things are moving forward. However, that is the thing about one’s own journey. It does not have to appear to be anything other than what it is and means for that particular person. Remember is a pilot episode to a series in development, largely exploring these themes creatively and sharing the journey and stories of our province.
PROFILE: From the city of Durban, South Africa, Luyanda Sosibo is a first-time filmmaker with experience primarily in supporting roles within the industry. Usually an art director/curator of events, Luyanda is also a stylist, set designer and installation artist.
Pudelko
Director: Anastasiya Lisovets
Russian Federation, 3’54”
HSE Art and Design School
SYNOPSIS: Can you hear it? Snow and icy sparks are outside. The winter bird is signing, the reindeer is screaming, the winter is blowing, the edges of the sky are howling. The girl is rising her voice, tenderly, because her breath can frighten the fire away.
PROFILE: Nastya Lisovets is an artist from Belarus. This year she graduated with a degree in Animation at the HSE Art And Design School (Moscow, Russia). During her studies, she made 4 films, which are currently being shown at international festivals.
Orchard’s Lie
Directors: Rike Malottke, Manuel Tröndle
Germany, 4’58”
HAW
SYNOPSIS: It is all about graspingthe fine line between longing and feeling loved in a relationship. With Orchards Lie, Melting Palms attempted to translate feelings of gentleness, desire and nostalgia into music. The music video of the single individual carries the viewers into a scenery between isolation and an imaginative world, with memories that pull the main figure deep into the woods and away from himself until he finds himself trapped inside his own mind.
PROFILES: Rike Malottke was born 1993 in Düsseldorf. In 2018 she started studying media engineering at Hamburg Univeristy. Rike was introduced into the media and music industry as an electrician and gaffer, and then moved to music video jobs, inter alia for the producer and singer Kuoko, Swutscher and Anna Wydra. In 2021 she accepted her first directory jobs for Hamburg local bands Dunya and Melting Palms. Manuel Tröndle is a young Director of Photography and Editor living in Hamburg, Germany. After his studies in Audio Engineering and Mixing, he did an apprenticeship as an Audiovisual Media Designer and has been working as an editor and Director of photography ever since. Although his focus lies in narrative visual storytelling through the form of motion picture, still photography- mostly documentary – has always been his passion.
Tuning
Director: Alemsah Firat
Turkey/Belgium, 2’45”
Luca School of Arts
SYNOPSIS: Tuning is a collaborative animation video realized in collaboration with New-York based musician Deca. The film explores humankind’s separation from nature and the destruction of its own source of being through a rhythmic flow of audiovisual poetry.
PROFILE: Dicle Alemsah Firat was born in Mersin, Turkey. After completing her high school education at Izmir American Collegiate Institute, she graduated from Farnham UCA’s animation BA course with the first class in 2020. She is a visual artist and experimental animation director, specializing in making oil-on-glass films that explore the collective consciousness through the dreamy nature of the medium. She is now a master’s student at Luca Brussels’ animation course where she is exploring new opportunities to represent the mother archetype through the collaboration with other musicians.
Object of Life
Director: Jack James Parry
Australia, 3’
Deakin University
SYNOPSIS: The Object of Life is a playful story about the perils of working towards material goals in life. It’s an uphill battle… but where is it all going?
PROFILE: Jack Parry is an Australian animation director of short philosophical films in Melbourne. His films visually engage with the synergy of music and image, providing the viewer with a delightful intertwined synesthetic experience. Jack is the director of Parry Animation Studios in Melbourne, Australia where he and Marianna make short films that rejoice in the delight of philosophy, animation and music.
Zadig/ Človek
Directors: Andrea Pátková, Adam Čurko, Viktoria Voržáčková
Slovakia, 4’21”
SŠUPAT
SYNOPSIS: An animated video clip for Jazz song called Človek by Peter Lipa and David Rotter. The video clip is journey of an alcoholic tourist in Egypt, who is trying to escape his own fate. The story is inspired by a folk tale based on a quote from The Old testament saying “God created heaven and Earth”. Therefore, hell must be place on Earth and it is upon us how we decide to shape our path. Our main hero ends up in the same place he was running away from , but it is clearly darker and sinister…
PROFILES: Andrea Pátková is Slovak animation student at Gobelins, Paris. She has worked on and directed 5 animated short films, one of them – Problémy s problémami – winner of the Slovak film prize Igric as best Slovak animated film of 2021. Zadig was also awarded by Igiric in 2022. Andrea has worked on commercials for brands such as Nike, Škoda and Visa. Adam Čurko is a Slovakian student of game design at VŠMU in Bratislava focusing on production of short films and games. Together with Andrea, they have been a team for 4 years producing 3 short films together. Adam is now working on the production of games. Viktoria Voržáčková is an architecture student, who has graduated from Animation at SŠUPAT alongside her classmates Adam and Andrea. Working on graduation film Zadig she has done 2D animation and coloring of the film.
French Windows
Director: Jack Osmond
United Kingdom, 3’41”
Leeds Arts University
SYNOPSIS: Stop-motion and printed music video for an orchestral-pop song.
PROFILE: Jack Osmond is a music composer and stop-motion generalist from London. He makes mixed-media music videos for his baroque-pop music compositions. Jack created French Windows in 2022 just before graduating from Leeds Arts University with a degree in Animation. His other music videos include The Art of Conversation, which was winner at the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival International Music Video Competition in 2022. Jack also has many other mixed-media animated films that have been selected to be presented at international film festivals.
