Trauma and adaptation difficulties in dysfunctional families emerge as the main themes in many of the 30 works in the international competion, from 26 countries. Two italian short films and five animated works are competing.
International jury: producer Alessandra Infascelli, british stop motion designer and art director Barbara Biddulph and french director Malou Lévêque.
Guests and tributes: masterclass by Marco Bellocchio, meeting with spanish director Pablo Berger, a tribute to Kumar Shahani and a celebration of Casanova and Fellini with Gianfranco Angelucci.
Animation: masterclass by Roberto Catani, pre-opening screening of over 20 animated short films and a program on the origins of animation cinema in Italy.
Special programs: british video art, short films from east Asia, Ca' Foscari's cinematic initiatives and a space for partner festivals.
Collateral competitions: CINIT Music Video Competition, High School Competition and the new Short Cine_Med.
Venice, February 26th 2025. The Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival celebrates its fifteenth edition this year, taking place from March 19 to 22, with a rich pre-opening dedicated to animation on March 18. The festival follows a ‘widespread’ format across Venice, with the main screenings hosted at the Auditorium Santa Margherita – Emanuele Severino. The Short is the first festival in Europe entirely conceived, organized, and managed by a university, under the artistic and organizational direction of Roberta Novielli.
This year's edition is once again packed with content, featuring the main competition, collateral contests, internationally renowned guests, and unmissable special programs. All of this is made possible thanks to the support of Fondazione di Venezia, partners such as Avani Rio Novo Venice Hotel, the Italian on-demand short film platform WeShort, and the communication agency UGO Comunicazione. Prizes are awarded with the contribution of the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino, CINIT - Cineforum Italiano, the Municipality of Venice – Murano – Burano, the Arrigo Pedrollo Conservatory of Vicenza, Le Giornate della Luce in Spilimbergo, the Religion Today Film Festival in Trento, Venezia Comics, and numerous festival partnerships, including the Piccolo Festival dell’Animazione, Smartfilms (Bogotá), Tokyo Student Film Festival, U22 Youth Film Festival (Barcelona), and VideoConcorso Pasinetti.
The Short remains a festival created by young people for young people (this year featuring over 150 student volunteers). Originating from Ca’ Foscari University, its ‘widespread’ shape has made it an increasingly integral part of Venice’s cultural scene, also celebrated through the stunning poster by Manuele Fior, marking his third collaboration with the festival. Some programs will be available not only at the Auditorium but also at six other captivating venues, all with free access: Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Casa del Cinema, Museum of Oriental Art – Ca’ Pesaro, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, and In Paradiso at the Giardini, along with multipurpose spaces at the Avani Rio Novo Venice Hotel.
The International Competition is the festival’s beating heart, turning it over the years into a global championship for young cinema, showcasing 30 of the best short films produced in the past year by university and film school students worldwide. This edition particularly highlights the theme of young people alienated from society due to challenging family backgrounds, a universal issue reflected across various countries from Brazil to South Africa, South Korea to Slovakia.
A striking example is Cura sana by Spanish director Lucia Romer, where a young girl, a victim of domestic abuse, tries to break the cycle of violence by reconnecting with her sister. In the Brazilian short My Mother is a Cow, director Moara Passoni places her protagonist in an alien environment, far from maternal love, testing her resilience in rediscovering lost affection. The toxic and dysfunctional relationship between father and son is central to Punter by South African director Jason Maselle, where a boy is willing to go to any lengths to gain his father’s attention. Adolescence can be a particularly painful and complicated period, especially when living with an adoptive family while a best friend decides to leave, as portrayed in Island of Young-a by South Korean director Choi Seung-hyun. In Far Between Us by Slovakian filmmaker Vojtěch Javůrek, the young protagonist struggles with separation from his biological mother, leading him to apocalyptic visions that may soon become reality. Italy is represented by two competing short films: L’Attaque by Aureliana Bontempo from CSC, exploring the evolving relationship between two sisters over the years as they face both imaginary and real monsters, questioning the boundaries of belief in those we love. Nero by Claudio Agostini from IED Rome follows a young man who is forced to reevaluate his priorities after a nightmarish experience and an unexpected encounter. This year’s competition also prominently features animation—a recurring theme of the fifteenth edition—with five animated short films, each distinguished by a unique artistic technique.
This year’s International Jury is composed of three outstanding women: Italian producer Alessandra Infascelli, who, alongside her husband, played a pivotal role in the success of Spaghetti Westerns, Italian crime films, thrillers, and comedies between the 1960s and 1980s, later focusing primarily on documentaries. British stop-motion designer and art director Barbara Biddulph is a key figure in English animation, contributing to cult series such as Bob the Builder and Scream Street, as well as working with renowned filmmakers like Wes Anderson and Tim Burton. French director Malou Lévêque, known for acclaimed shorts such as Dynamique et motivé (2017), is a multidisciplinary artist who has also pursued a career in theater, founding a street theater troupe. The three jurors will also take part in the Special Jury Program, where they will engage with the audience and share their experiences in filmmaking. This will also be an opportunity to screen Lévêque’s latest short film, La verité.
Numerous awards will be presented in the International Competition. Alongside the top prize, there will be special mentions, including the ‘Museo Nazionale del Cinema’ Special Mention and the ‘WeShort’ Special Mention. Other awards will be assigned by specific juries, including the ‘Ugo Comunicazione’ Special Mention for Best Screenplay (jury: Piergiorgio Paladin, Eduardo Fernando Varela, Giovanna Cordova), the ‘Conservatorio di Vicenza’ Special Mention for Best Original Score (jury: Davide Tiso, Stefano Lorenzetti, Andrea Carli, Riccardo Tamai), the ‘Le Giornate della Luce’ Special Mention for Best Cinematography (jury: Donato Guerra, Silvia Moras, Luca Pacilio), the Pateh Sabally Award for Multiculturalism (awarded by the Municipality of Venice), and the Best Animated Short Film Award (assigned by Venezia Comics). A new special mention is also introduced this year, recognizing works that best highlight spirituality and social engagement among younger generations, awarded by the Religion Today Film Festival (jury: Andrea Morghen, Lisa Martelli, Giovanna Rech). The main prizes will be handcrafted glass sculptures offered by CONSORZIO PROMOVETRO MURANO, an organization preserving the Venetian glassmaking tradition, bringing together some of Murano and Venice’s most renowned glass manufacturers.
As always, the Short will be enriched by a diverse selection of special programs, tributes, focuses, and retrospectives. Among the main guests of this 15th edition is one of the most famous directors of Italian and international cinema, Marco Bellocchio. The festival will honor the acclaimed director with a dedicated program, culminating in a live interview on the Auditorium stage with critic Anton Giulio Mancino. During this in-depth conversation, Bellocchio will revisit over half a century of his career, from his groundbreaking debut Fists in the Pocket (1965) to his most recent work, Kidnapped (2023). His body of work, spanning from China is Near to Vincere, and from Slap the Monster on Page One to My Mother’s Smile, has left a profound mark on global cinema. His contributions have been recognized at the world’s most prestigious festivals, including the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (2011) and the Honorary Palme d’Or (2021), placing him among the select few filmmakers who have shaped contemporary cinematic imagination. Another distinguished guest will be Pablo Berger. The Spanish director will headline a masterclass curated by John Bleasdale, offering an opportunity to delve into the artistic vision of this eclectic and refined filmmaker. Berger has seamlessly transitioned from the bittersweet comedy of his debut Torremolinos 73 to the gothic reinterpretation of the Blancanieves (2012) myth—an homage to silent cinema that won ten Goya Awards and was Spain’s official submission for Best Foreign Film at the 2014 Oscars. His latest film, Robot Dreams (2023), a universally acclaimed animated feature, has won numerous international awards and earned an Academy Awards nomination. The festival will also dedicate a tribute to Kumar Shahani, who passed away in 2024. Curated by Cecilia Cossio, this homage honors the great Indian filmmaker, a pivotal figure in parallel cinema and a beloved presence at the Short, where he served as a juror for the 4th edition, leaving an indelible mark. Audiences will have the chance to (re)discover Bhavantarana (1991), Shahani’s documentary exploring the Odissi dance and traditional Indian culture. Finally, the Short will celebrate the 300th anniversary of Venetian icon Giacomo Casanova while simultaneously paying tribute to Federico Fellini. This special program will feature Gianfranco Angelucci—writer, screenwriter, director, journalist, and a close collaborator of the legendary filmmaker. Angelucci will present the documentary E il Casanova di Fellini? (1975), which he co-directed with Liliana Betti during a break in the filming of Fellini’s controversial Casanova. This unique behind-the-scenes film blends fiction and reality, featuring imaginary casting auditions with actors like Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio Gassman.
A significant highlight of this fifteenth edition is the focus on animation. In addition to being the centerpiece of the festival’s pre-opening event, the section features one of the most renowned Italian illustrators and animators of recent decades, Roberto Catani. Known for his poetic and delicate style, Catani will host a masterclass led by Andrijana Ružić, where he will unveil the secrets behind his artisanal technique and present a selection of his short films, including the recent "Il burattino e la balena," which was selected for the Venice Film Festival. The special pre-opening event, Anymation, offers a rich program starting with a roundtable discussion featuring members of CUC and the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, leading up to the presentation of the new immersive media research and development project, immersiVenice. The event will also include screenings of over twenty animated shorts, ranging from productions by the Estonian Academy of Arts—the only institution of its kind in Estonia—to selections from partner festivals, the Piccolo Festival dell’Animazione and the Tokyo Student Film Festival, Asia’s oldest student-run festival. The animation genre is also featured in one of the most beloved recurring programs of the festival, namely the focus on early cinema curated by Carlo Montanaro. This year, it will celebrate the birth of animation in Italy with a selection that includes the first animated sequence in the history of Italian cinema, extending to productions from the 1940s and 1950s.
East Asia Now, curated by Stefano Locati, presents innovative short films from East and Southeast Asia. This year’s lineup includes three films from Japan, Thailand, and China, exploring themes of urban and social peripheries and the resilience of dreamers. The Special Gaze curated by Elisabetta Di Sopra, expands its focus beyond Italian video art, collaborating with Laura Leuzzi to explore British video art. Other special programs include the Pasinetti VideoContest and Young Filmmakers at Ca’ Foscari, showcasing student projects such as Matteo Tonelli’s short film and Desktop Super Shorts, a multimedia project curated by Miriam De Rosa. The festival will also premiere Ginger ~ Fred, a student-produced short for the second edition of the Veneto Region’s Film & Equality Project.
Returning collateral competitions include the ninth edition of the CINIT Music Video Competition, featuring the ten best music videos from university and film school students, judged by Giovanni Bedeschi, Martina Buran, and Giordano Giordani. The twelfth edition of the High School Competition showcases ten finalist films created by high school students worldwide, judged by Ca’ Foscari students. A new addition is Short Cine_Med, a ‘zero edition’ competition dedicated to short films on rheumatic diseases, in collaboration with the Italian Society of Rheumatology (SIR) and the Institute of Rheumatology History (ISR), featuring eight competing films. The festival also continues partnerships with Le Giornate della Luce, Religion Today Film Festival, WeShort, U22 Youth Film Festival in Barcelona, and Smartfilms in Bogotá.
Finally, the awards ceremony will be introduced by Mauro Sambo’s video My father, my job, my life and conclude with a live musical performance by Musicafoscari, scoring Buster Keaton’s classic 1922 silent film Cops.
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