Now in its 14th year, Kinemastik is once again hosting an international festival of short films between July 27 and 28 at the Garden of Rest in Floriana.
The Kinemastik team selected numerous award-winning shorts from international festivals such as The Berlinale; Clermont-Ferrand and Cannes in France; Toronto in Canada; Tribeca, New York and Locarno in Switzerland. These will be screened alongside four Maltese shorts directed by Keith Tedesco, Charlie Cauchi, Thomas Georgi and Jimmy Grima as part of collaboration with the Magna Zmien project.
As in previous years, the audience will get the chance to vote for their favourite film and there will also be an international jury that will award the Golden Dot trophy to the winner. The 2018 Jury consists of film executive Andrew Gow, visual artist John Grech and writer/director Stephanie Sant.
On July 29, Kinemastik will host Little Rock People – the children’s short film festival curated by Jon Banthorpe. The festival aims to introduce a younger audience to the brilliant world of short film, through a selection of non-patronising and potentially challenging films that aim to provoke, question and entertain discerning young festival goers.
“Kinemastik is entirely run by a group of volunteers, including its core team,” says Kinemastik founder Bojana Dimitrovska. “Our biggest challenge is finding the time between our work and other life commitments. We have also been very fortunate to be able to rely on the help and enthusiasm of volunteers and friends. Moreoever, artistic director Sandra Zaffarese puts a lot of thought into how the venue looks and how the festival interacts with its audience.”
The festival is now in its 14th year, a testament to its success. Bojana attributes this to the festival’s bold film schedule. Kinemastik programmer Emma Mattei follows the international short film festival circuit to come up with a mix of award-winning films and fresh and challenging works by Maltese and international filmmakers on the rise.
“Our out-of-competition film section, Neck of the Woods, offers a selection for those who like to be taken out of their comfort zone,” explains Bojana. “Then, there is the fantastic line up of resident and guest DJs and bands that keep the post-screening parties alive all night long.”
“The clue to the attraction of short film lies in its name – they are short,” says Banthorpe. “But in reality – and with running times varying from four to 40 minutes – the world of short films is much more diverse than its feature-length counterpart.”
Banthorpe then goes on to explain that whereas the challenge of compressing a story down to a limited timeline is a tricky one, the production costs and broad range of image making approaches allow for a much wider range of voices and stories than would be found in the local cinema.
“Film is film; if you enjoy cinema then short films are included in that,” he opines. “Many major directors began with self-produced shorts including George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Spike Lee and Andrei Tarkovsky. With the discussion around bloated running times of big studio productions rising, fans of short film appreciate that short is most certainly sweet!”
KISFF is supported by the Malta Arts Council through the Cultural Partnership Agreement.
www.kinemastik.org