The fourth day of Ca’ Foscari Short Fim Festival
The last short films of the Competition, the first sound experiments in film’s history, the Veneto High Schools Competition and the winner of the “Olga Brunner Levi” Award
The closing ceremony with two artistic performances and the announcement of the winners
THE PRESS RELEASE WITH THE NAMES OF THE WINNERS WILL BE PUBLISHED TOMORROW
The fourth and last day of the sixth edition of the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival started at 2PM with the screening of the last six short films of the International Competition. The first one was the Frence-produced Arash, written and directed by Iranian director Maral Pourmandan, a brief allegoric journey that retraces world’s history from the origin of the universe until our times. Then it was time for Where is Don? by the Kosovan director More Raca, a film about the tragic story of a journalist who finds herself bound to live the nightmare of intimidations, followed by Die Kunst, Meine Familie und Ich – About Art, My Family and Me by Johannes Bachmann, where the director reflects upon his life starting from some old home movies. The next film was Nemo by Felipe Sanz, which tells the story of a man who is constantly been contacted by the Osprey Clinic, always asking for a certain Dr. Vargas. Getting curious about these weird calls, the protagonist starts some research to find out the identity of this man. Next it was presented 500 Ounces of Gold by the Iranian director Shahrzad Dadgar, a short film about a joung Iranian couple facing the difficulties related to the unexpected pregnancy of Sami, who will end up making the difficult choise of abortion. The closing short of the International Competition was Lacuna by Hitoshi Matsumoto, whose protagonist is a joung mathematician who is busy solving a problem that could change the destiny of the world. However, the dramatic events regarding the mathematician’s dear one will seriously jeopardize his researches.
Following the International Competition was the turn of the special programme Silent? No, Thanks! presented by Carlo Montanaro with the collaboration of Fabbrica del Vedere. The programme, through the projection of short films ranging from 1894 to 1926, proposed an overview of the experiments between image and sound at the beginning of cinema’s history. The event, after a brief introduction by its organizer, included the projection of the short film Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1894, 40’’), and presented sound experimentations by Alice Guy, Theodore Case and others. The last film shown was the trailer of the very first sound film, The Jazz Singer (1926).
At 5 PM the spotlight was on Veneto High Schools Competition. The three selected works were screened: Fleeting Time (3’01”) by Riccardo Dall’Acqua, student at Liceo Artistico Guggenheim, is a tribute to the hugeness of nature, made by 15000 shots in 82 hours of filming. Infernal Dream (14’30”), a four-handed directed film by Lorenzo Bazan and Elia Risato from Liceo Scientifico Leonardo da Vinci (Treviso), tells the story of a schoolboy interested in Dante’s Divine Comedy who faints after a fight with his love rival and wakes up in the XVIII canto of Inferno. Two faces (2’13”) by Riccardo Tonon from Liceo Artistico Bruno Munari (Vittorio Veneto) faces the topic of using social network nowadays, when fiction is confused with reality. To follow, “Olga Brunner Levi” Prize, a collateral competition dedicated to high school students from all over Italy requested to make a short film about female musical performances or about the role of women related to music throughout history. The jury made up by Roberto Calabretto, Roberta Novielli and Luisa Zanoncelli awarded Alice Fraccaro for her work AAH Venessia, which was screened at the Auditorium.
The Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival ended at 7.30 PM with the Closing Ceremony that, along with the winners, saw as protagonists two multi-talented artists of the entertainment’s world, Roberta Pennisi and Xu Baolong. who showed to the public of Auditorium their own art. The Italian Pennisi, who is fond of art and dance, charmed the audience with a series of perfomances, like Fire and led show, a fascinating combination of lights, music and colours. Xu Baolong, a master of martial arts, perfomed “chaquan” (a speciality of “wushu”, that matches extremely fast and slow movements) and a short demonstration of the dagger’s art.
