The 8th edition of the Malta Short Film Festival came to an end with the award ceremony at the Radisson Blu Resort, St Julian’s, last Friday week. The big winner of the night was the haunting short horror Chateau Sauvignon, which won Best Picture, the Best Actor prize for its lead Michael Lorz and Best Cinematography.

Nicholas CaruanaNicholas Caruana

Conceived by film and TV director Tony Parnis and organised by The Malta Film Foundation, the festival was broadcast on TVM. In competition at this year’s festival were 20 films from 11 countries, including five films from Malta.

The Best Actress prize was awarded to Janine Godinas for No Fixed Motive from Belgium, while the Best Maltese Director went to Shirley Spiteri Mintoff for Friend or Foe. The UK production Into the Surf by writer/director Tom Evans won Best Script and Best Use of Sound.

In other technical categories, the Best Production Design was awarded to Abi Macleod Clark and Emma Morgan for the Maltese production The Pomegranate House, while Spain’s It Wasn’t Me won Best Editing.

Shirley Spiteri MintoffShirley Spiteri Mintoff

The winner of the award for Most Original Concept went to the Italian Sleeping Wonder, written and directed by Alberto Rizzi, in which a young woman falls into a dream that takes her onto a surreal journey with romantic undertones and a dreamlike ambiance.

“I wanted to tell a story about diversity and love,” says Rizzi, in comments to The Sunday Times of Malta. “Some years ago I met a group of people with mental disabilities and they inspired me to tell a story about love and disability. In the age of love there’s no disability.”

Sleeping Wonder also boasts some very striking images, and Rizzi emphasises that images are very important for him. “With this film I wanted to tell a story with images. These images can ‘speak’, and sometimes they are stronger than words. The movie is a dream, and in dreams images and visuals are very important. So I wanted to recreate a dream-like atmosphere.”

Albert RizzoAlbert Rizzo

Rizzi says he is very proud to have won an award in the Malta Short Film Festival, adding to the several it has won to date following participation in festivals from the US to Australia and from England to South Africa.

It was also a very big night for Maltese animated short Qrempuċu, based on the main character in Trevor Zahra’s 1985 book Qrempuċu f’Belt il-Ġobon, and created by brothers Nicholas and Mark Caruana. Having enjoyed a successful run in Maltese cinemas last December, Qrempuċu was rewarded with the Best Use of Animation award, while the brothers were also awarded the Rising Star Award courtesy of the Matthew Martino Benevolent Fund.

Plans to make Qrempuċu a full-length feature are still on track

“This is really encouraging for us,” says Caruana. “First of all, we did not expect this. We were already glad that our short film was accepted by the MSFF. There were a lot of good short films competing in this festival. Considering that this is our first short film we ever did, we felt really grateful that Qrempuċu was recognised by the awarding body. Creating an animation film is not an easy task, and something like this is truly a pat on the back.”

The Caruanas confirm that plans to make Qrempuċu a full-length feature are still on track. “It’s been already five years since we first started laying the foundations for the ‘mousey’ work,” they say. “Our original plan was always to complete a full-feature film. The idea of doing a short came in later. At each and every stage of the production we realise that the task is even harder than we originally expected.”  Suffice it to say, the feedback to date has served as a boost for the full feature. “Sometimes, working on a huge project like this can be very exhaustive, and the reaction of the general public kept our spirits up.”

The jury was made up of Prof. Fr Saviour Chircop, Charles Stroud, Winston Azzopardi, whose short film Head recently won the awards for Best Foreign Narrative Short and Best in Show – Short (Audience Choice Awards) at the Rome International Film Festival and Joyce Grech, the festival executive producer.

The festival has gone from strength to strength and was last year awarded the EFFE label – Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe, while the Film Foundation has also signed a three-year Cultural Partnership Agreement with Arts Council Malta to expand its operations.

Over the past few years, the event has provided a screening platform for both Maltese and filmmakers while giving coverage to the short film, which often gets to play second fiddle to its big brother, the feature. The films are screened in a series of programmes on TVM during the summer.

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