11th EDITION
FINALISTS:
Heroine – Hrdinka(y)
Director: Gabriela Čížková
Czech Republic, 7’14″
Ss Nahorni
SYNOPSIS: Heroine(s) is a film about human power. About brave people who do not give up when facing a difficult life condition and continue to go on. It is an animation biographical document.
PROFILE: Gabriela Čížková is a high school student interested in animation, illustration and book graphic design. She has made three short film, Komárka (2022), Heroine (2023), and Strange adventures of Lint from a bellybutton (2023).
Mar
Director: Emilia Diaz Delgado
USA, 9’05″
Ruth Asawa School of The Arts
SYNOPSIS: A young girl’s first experience with religion that pulls her away from her beloved ocean, giving her a glimpse of the multifaceted personality of faith as it relates to gender and freedom.
PROFILE: Emilia Diaz Delgado is a filmmaker and musician based in San Francisco, CA. She studies film at SF Art & Film.
Temporary details – Dettagli temporanei
Director: Christian Dei
Italy, 8’21″
Istituto Professionale R. Rossellini di Cinema
SYNOPSIS: A mysterious man lives in a world where time passes in an unusual way. He chases life by constantly challenging himself. A story of discovery, mystery and the power of time perception.
PROFILE: At the early age of 16, this emerging actor and director from Rimini calls himself an “almost” director, far from thinking he has already achieved his objectives. With clear ideas about his future, he has been cultivating his passion for cinema since childhood. Acting courses and participation in theatrical performances have helped to strengthen his determination to make filmmaking his vocation. Temporary Details is his debut in audiovisual storytelling.
Bon appetit
Director: Sasha Kobrina
France, 1’45″
Merinov Animation School
SYNOPSIS: In a huge, lively restaurant, a tiny spider spots his next meal. What could go wrong? Bon appetit is about the little ironies and light humour in the chaos of life.
PROFILE: Born in England in December 2006, she lived in Moscow and Cambridge, and is presently living near Paris. She is an IB student at Ermitage International school. Higher level subjects: visual arts, English literature, French B. Standard level subjects: chemistry, math analysis, psychology. 2D animation course at @merinovschool 2022-23.
Resorting to sleep – Alluju’ ‘iilaa alnawm
Director: Tawfeeq Rashad
Yemen, 2’58″
Al Naim School
SYNOPSIS: A little girl tells about the nightmares she has personally experienced and those that will happen due to retrograde beliefs and traditional customs.
PROFILE: Seventeen-year old Tawfeeq Rashad, a filmmaker and photographer from Yemen, is currently attending secondary school. He is strongly interested in childhood issues and children’s rights. He is presently working on his upcoming film titled Hila (Trick), which explores the lives of Yemeni youth exhausted by the challenging circumstances in the country and their attempts to adapt to society.
Echo sonata
Director: Vlad Matei Sandor
Romania, 14’46″
Liceul Teoretic Onisifor Ghibu
SYNOPSIS: Set in the winter mist of 1953, a former detective unravels a chilling series of murders linked to a masked avenger and Wagner’s haunting tunes, exposing buried secrets.
PROFILE: Born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Sandor Vlad’s short films include Freshman’s Ballad, Whole Burnt, Maledictis and A Hall of Mirrors. The most notable selections and awards from various film festivals include: semi-Finalist of the “San Francisco Arthouse Festival” (Maledictis), finalist of the “3 Generations Third Annual Youth Video Contest” (A Hall of Mirrors). Akira Kurosawa and Andrei Tarkovski’s cinematography are his source of inspiration, but also the operas by Wagner, Verdi and Puccini, or Shakespeare’s plays such as Macbeth and King Lear.
Dreamer – Marzyciel
Director: Piotr Kaźmierczak
Poland, 2’33″
LAF WFA
SYNOPSIS: A simple story of a fisherman – a tale of excessive ambition and missed opportunities.
PROFILE: Piotr Kaźmierczak is 17 years old. It was in 2015 that he realized animation would become his main passion. He creates original films using the techniques of puppet, painting, cut-out, plasticine and computer animation. He has won many competitions for children and youth animation in Poland and abroad.
Kill the Artist
Director: Doroteja Drevenšek
Slovenia, 5’08″
Gimnazija Ptus
SYNOPSIS: Why does the world need artists, or rather, why doesn’t it need them? We have combined the opinions of Instagram followers and Chat GPT to create a film about why we do not need art. Only art has the power to question itself. Kill the artist. Eat the news, eat the world and create.
PROFILE: Doroteja Drevenšek is an 18-year-old student from Maribor. She has won several national awards for her poetry, but she is also a successful filmmaker and director in theatre. A theatre play she directed (Dogodek v mestu z Gongi) received a reward as best play among the youth theatre groups in Slovenia. Her successes also include school rewards and national awards for her movies. The greatest achievement she has received so far is coming first at the grand jury award at the youth film festival Videomanija 2023 for her movie Korak (Step).
