Find more about the winners of the 1° MalatestaShort Film Festival

Best Animation

"Arkhe", the winner in the “Best Animation” category, is a 3D short film with accurate aesthetics and elegant sound. Batuhan Köksal, born in 1987 in İzmir, is a young Turkish filmmaker, screenwriter and producer of his own works. Besides animated films, he loves acting, an art that he studied at Dokuz Eylul University.

His short film deals with the archetypical story of the desire for knowledge, its control and the abuse of power which have always characterized mankind.

In a luminous globe, two faceless spirits made of light arrive on a dark, abandoned and apparently lifeless planet. But they are watched by mysterious shadows. They are later lured by the skeleton of a tree without leaves nor fruit; they observe it and wander in the surroundings, until they discover parts of human bodies, like pieces of abandoned mannequins. They take those parts and put them on so as to build a human body that seems to allow them to see what there is around them. Only through this human body they can define who they are and understand the world which, however, becomes quickly a will to affirmation and abuse of power that will transform them into shadows. A symbolic story that can be largely interpreted. In any case, this short film makes the public think about the ancestral dynamics of the human spirit. Moreover, it astonishes the spectator thanks to the essential shapes, the pure colors: blue, black and white as the colors of the universe.

Best Fiction

The winner in the “Best Fiction” category is "AKITA" (United Kingdom, 2016, 9' 01'') by Alastair Cummings and John Hickman.

The short film was presented to other festivals in the UK and in other countries where it won awards for best director and best actor in leading role. During the film, a man, who is going back home from work, sees an apparently abandoned dog. When he finds it at the same spot some days later, he decides to walk the dog somewhere outside the city. By doing so, the dog has the chance to play and have fun again.

Some short films tell complex stories in very few minutes, they show different characters and build intricate plots. Even if Akita’s story seems too simple, it strikes for its profound message without even showing it: the main character makes us think of Ken Loach, we can image the background where he comes from, the frustration due to his hard and poorly paid work (which is just mentioned but not really explained), the loneliness of his life to which he will soon come back, the very few social relationships he has. For all these things, we are able to understand what the encounter with this dog means to him: it is the chance to escape his routine life and finally have someone to spend some time with, a happy moment in the beautiful English countryside, maybe the motivation to start a new life (when he throws his high visibility warning jacket that he wears at work). The simple directing highlights the emotional landscapes without emphasis but only through little details, for example we hear the music only when the dog climbs into the car, and also in the ending, allowing the spectator to realize by himself the man’s internal conflict to take a heartbreaking decision.

akitamovie

Best Documentary

The winner in the “Best Documentary” category is a beautiful short film by Victoria Fiore, director and editor with Italian origins who lives between London and Naples. “My Deadly, Beautiful City” (United Kingdom 2016, 11' 00'') is Norilsk, in Siberia, and industrial city in the middle of a snow desert, world capital of nickel and palladium. There are no roads to reach the city, Internet connection is extremely limited, and Norilsk is basically off limits to foreigners (the director had to struggle to obtain permission to shoot there). Industrial processing causes the emission of toxic gases and the release of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which is the major cause of acid rain and of the death of plants and trees. Human health is negatively affected too.

Yet, many inhabitants say they are in love with the city, a symbol of the “titanic” human strength on nature, and with the almost surreal landscape full of chimney stacks and factories surrounded by a white steppe. Through a perfect cinematography which is able even to show the poetic side of this degradation, Victoria Fiore gives space to the voices and captures the moments in everyday life which seem to come out of a Russian novel: the middle-aged man, proud to live in that harsh environment, throws himself into the icy waters of the river near the factory discharges, which produce vapors and heat the water; the little girl who, in the blue reflection of the snow, breaks the branch of a charcoal gray tree, while she says that she does not like living there because the gases give her headaches and stomach aches, and cough; a boy, like a hermit, perched in his apartment turned into a greenhouse to create a reserve of oxygen; the workers of the mines plunging into the darkness; a man who crosses the city by bus at night to go to work and sees the factories outside the window, having the feeling to "live cosmic moments".

The most significant part is the interview to a doctor who repeats half-heartedly the official version of authorities: it is true, sulfur dioxide causes acid rain which has a negative effect on nature but does not damage the human body. What betrays him is the direction of his gaze, which he lowers and raises several times, pointing to an object on the desk that is unveiled in the next shot: a photo of Vladimir Putin with his finger pointed to warning "Use your head".

A perfect directing which shows, without even speaking, a complex reality in all its aspects: these are certainly among the reasons for a more than deserved prize.

 Official Selection - 2017 - Category in Competition

Best Animation

 Best Fiction

Best Documentary 

 MalatestaShort Film Festival

The 13^th – 14^th – 15^th March 2017, at Cinema Eliseo Multisala

Three days of film screenings, meetings and award ceremonies: the MalatestaShort Film Festival brings in Cesena the variety and imagination typical of short films.

Film enthusiasts have the chance to discover new talents!

47 short films from 55 countries have been selected, competing in three categories: - Best Animation - Best Fiction - Best Documentary. We will first present the works of local directors, then we will show their short film followed by an interview. 

 

The first edition of the MalatestaShort Film Festival pays tribute to the short film "Le Ballon rouge" (1956) by Albert Lamorisse. 

  

Monday, March 13^th, 2017

8.30 pm: Opening and presentation of the Festival

Km 0 talents: “Lontano Ovest” (fiction, Italy 2016) by Francesco Selvi

Film in competition screening:

9.00 pm: Animation

9.45 pm: Fiction

10.30 pm: Documentary

11.30 pm: Shortino - After Festival party at Zampanó

Download the pdf file with the daily details of the film screening.

Tuesday, March 14^th, 2017

8.30 pm: Km 0 talents: “UnControl Room” (documentary, Italy 2014) by Martina Dall’Ara

Film in competition screening:

9.00 pm: Animation

9.45 pm: Fiction

10.30 pm: Documentary

11.30 pm: Shortino - After Festival party at Zampanó

Download the pdf file with the daily details of the film screening.

Wednesday, March 15^th, 2017

Wednesday, March 15^th, 2017

8.30 pm: Km 0 talents: “Energy Diary” (animation, Italy 2016) by Emilio Rossi

Film in competition screening:

9.00 pm: Animation- Best animation award

9.45 pm: Fiction- Best fiction award

10.30 pm: Documentary- Best documentary award

11.30 pm: Shortino - After Festival party at Zampanó

Download the pdf file with the daily details of the film screening.

Many collaborators made it possible to present the MalatestaShort Film Festival. Below you can find their names, in random order. We thank them very much for their incredible and professional work.

Translations and subtitles (translated short film title)

Sonia Bacchi (Translation project manager, reviewer – Frequency, I Do Not Hate You Death, Little Thing, The Department of Correction, The Salt Man)

Caterina Arzani (Urban)

Elisa Balboni (Salt of the Earth)

Greta Bezzini (The Complete Circle)

Ester Biasizzo (Modern day Slavery: What the World Doesn't Know)

Giulia Giorgini (PET)

Erica Granato (The Locksmith)

Serena Grementieri (Brez žice)

Cristina Mircea (Bread of Life)

Alessandra Orlo (Tonnerre de Brecht)

Guendalina Pirruccio (My deadly Beautiful City, Dreaming of Peggy Lee)

Francesco Rossini (All I Want, Le Distributeur)

Annarita Tranfici (Djinns, the Spirits of Patras - English, French, Spanish and Portuguese website translations)

Host:

Andrea Pari