ROBB PRATT’S MASTERCLASS, MAIN ACT OF THE FIRST DAY OF THE FESTIVAL
ROGER CORMAN SAYS GOODBYE TO THE FESTIVAL WITH A VIDEO MESSAGE
THE TRAGICOMIC SIDE OF INDEPENDENT CINEMA WITH THE ITALIAN WEBSERIES LOBAGGE
THE FESTIVAL’S FIRST SHORT FILMS FOCUS ON THE BOND BETWEEN MOTHER AND SON
THE SHORT FILMS BY THE STUDENTS OF THE MASTER IN FINE ARTS IN FILMMAKING AND THE WINNING ONES FROM THE FESTIVAL’S PREVIOUS EDITION
Venice, 21st of March. Roger Corman inaugurated the eighth edition of the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival with a video message addressed to the young directors participating in the competition on the occasion of the conferral of the Ca’ Foscari Honorary Fellow. It was the most awaited moment of the Festival’s inauguration ceremony, during which the artistic and organizational director Roberta Novielli and the pro-rector of communication and promotion of the University Marco Sgarbi welcomed the guests and the numerous people who came for the occasion.
The first day was characterized by one of the most awaited event of the Eight Edition of Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival, the masterclass of the veteran Disney animator, Robb Pratt. He contributed to the creation of well known movies such as Tarzan, Pocahontas, Hercules. As special guest of the festival, Pratt taught an amusing class, revealing to the public of the Auditorium the secrets of his animation. He also presented his new work CARMAN: The Road Rage Anti-Hero. An independent project of seven shorts uploaded on his You Tube channel. CARMAN is an old-school animation that shows the panic of Los Angeles streets. At the end of each episode Pratt makes a tutorial, teaching to the viewer the main aspects of the creation of an animated storyboard, combining teaching and entertainment. For the opening day the festival shown Lobbage, an irreverent and successful web series broadcast also on TV. It won the best Sketch/comedy at Roma Web Festival. The series was presented by the creator and actor Andrea Muzzi and by the director Claudio Piccolotto. The main subject of the shorts are well know plots, remade in a comic way because of the budget restrictions of the director- protagonist. Among the most satirical episodes, there is a remake of Romeo and Juliet, whose families are not in conflict yet, and a new version of Snow White, whose witch accepts the response of the mirror of desires. A view on the independent cinema production which – refusing the idea of cinema as the only way of profit – focuses on the most artistic and innovative aspects of the seventh art with a parodic intent. The two guests also presented other two projects thought for the web, in which they are involved: Pupazzo criminale, a series created by Lillo & Greg which was born as a parody of Romanzo criminale and whose protagonists are rag dolls, and Eppure era una gran brava persona, a comic series which banters today’s news bulletins and turn them into a play.
The eighth edition of Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival opened with a novelty: the screening of the short movies produced by the students of the master in Fine Arts in Filmmaking, whose first edition has recently come to an end. Venezia, your home was supervised by the director Hiroki Hayashi. Through the quotation of several iconic movies – sometimes even with irony – the real venetian-everyday-life has been shown. The collective production Dedalus is a free adaptation of Raymond Carver’s novel of the same name and it revealed how difficult and often traumatic can be to change our own life. The Piombi Theater is set in the Venice of the Seventies and follows the political commitment, love and relationship with theatre of two young guys. Viola tells about two different but equally deleterious relationships, one with a brother and the other one with a friend. Lin-Da The first Gondola is a refreshing love story between an ex-gondolier and his boat.
In the afternoon the winners of the last edition of the Festival were celebrated, with the screening of the winner of the Grand Prix for Best Short Film 2017, Amygdala, by George Graham (United Kingdom), and the special mention Volumina, Petrel by Charles Broad (Australia), and the winner of the Pateh Sabally Sightseeing Prize by David Borbás (Hungary / Sweden).
The opening day of the eighth edition of Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival ended after five movie showings concurring in the International Contest. The first one, In Our Skin by Rosa Beiroa, a British filmmaker and illustrator, is a celebration of feminine freedom through body shapes and volumes, represented with a plain line which follows some moments of ordinary life dynamically, in a sequence of sensorial portraits. The second movie shown was No pases por San Bernardino, a movie by the Mexican moviemaker Hugo Magaña. Inspired by real events occurred in 07/09/2014, this short illustrates Ligia’s life events, a mourning mother who tries to find out the truth behind her young son’s death. The protagonist will be pushed by opposite forces related to anti-political movements and governmental corruption, even when they will try to use her to be their own representative personality. The Mother theme is the narrative focus of the third movie shown today too, that is Bophelo ba Ana by Mlu Godola, a South African filmmaker. The working pressure and the responsibility related to parenthood Ana is feeling intersect each other in an obsessive state of anxiety toward her son, which would culminate into the final revelation. This movie explores the limits of family bonds as well as how they can produce an oppressive atmosphere which can harm the family structure itself. In the French short Le Jour où Mama nest devenue un Monstre by the moviemaker Josephine Darcy Hopkins, the Mother theme is led to exasperation and seen through little Candice’s eyes, whose parents got divorced. Her mother’s depression would explode into a mood of tension, built up by using classic horror expedients, and get the mother-and-daughter relationship upside down, highlighting the characters’ humanity. Tash Kamir, which is Evgenii Chistiakov’s debut movie, closed this opening day. This short shows the story of two young men who earn a living by mining charcoal; the short puts the difficulties of underprivileged classes into the spotlight as well as the typical lack of hope, opposed to the protagonists’ desire for a better future.
