The Short opens its doors to high school students with the collateral competition High School Competition, which sees the participation of students from high schools all over the world and which this year, in its various forms, reaches its eleventh edition. The competition is entirely aimed at young people, on both sides of the screen, as the eight finalists will be evaluated by a jury of Ca' Foscari students.
Director: Gabriela Čížková
Czech Republic, 7’14″
Ss Nahorni
Synopsis: Heroine(s) is a film about human strength. About brave people who do not give up in a difficult life and move forward. It is an animated biographical document.
Profile: Gabriela Čížková is a high school student interested in animation, illustration and book graphics. She has made three short films, Komárka (2022), Heroine (2023) and Strange adventures of Lint from a bellybutton (2023).
Director: Emilia Diaz Delgado
USA, 9’05″
Ruth Asawa School of The Arts
Synopsis: A young girl’s first experience with religion when it takes her away from her beloved ocean, giving her a glimpse of the multifaceted personality of faith in relation to gender and freedom.
Profile: Emilia Diaz Delgado is a filmmaker and musician from San Francisco, California. She studies film at SF Art & Film.
Directed by: Christian Dei
Italy, 8’21″
Istituto Professionale R. Rossellini di Cinema
Synopsis: A mysterious man lives in a world where time flows in an unusual way. He pursues life constantly struggling with himself. A story of discovery, mystery and the power of the perception of time.
Profile: At just 16 years old, an emerging actor and director from Rimini defines himself as an “almost” director, far from the attitude of those who think they have already arrived. With clear ideas about his future, he has cultivated his passion for cinema since childhood. Acting courses and participation in theatrical performances have helped consolidate his determination to make cinema his vocation. Temporary Details is her debut in audiovisual storytelling.
Director: Sasha Kobrina
France, 1’45″
Merinov Animation School
Synopsis: In a huge and bustling restaurant, a small spider locates its next meal. What could possibly go wrong? Bon appetit is about the small ironies and light humor in the chaos of life.
Profile: Born in December 2006 in England, lived in Moscow, then Cambridge and now lives near Paris. Currently studying IB at the Ermitage International School. Higher level subjects: Visual Arts, English Literature, French B. Standard level subjects: Chemistry, Calculus, Psychology. 2D animation course at @merinovschool 2022-23.
Director: Tawfeeq Rashad
Yemen, 2’58″
Al Naim School
Synopsis: A little girl tells about the nightmares she has experienced in reality and others that will occur due to retrograde beliefs and traditional customs.
Profile: Tawfeeq Rashad, a Yemeni director and photographer, is attending secondary school at 17. Passionate about childhood and its rights. He is currently working on his next film titled Hila (Trick), which explores the lives of young Yemenis exhausted by the harsh circumstances of their country and their attempts to adapt to society.
Director: Vlad Matei Sandor
Romania, 14’46″
Liceul Teoretic Onisifor Ghibu
Synopsis: Set in the winter haze of 1953, a former detective uncovers a chilling series of murders linked to a masked avenger and Wagner’s haunting melodies, revealing buried secrets.
Profile: Born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Sandor Vlad's short films include Freshman's Ballad, Whole Burnt, Maledictis and A Hall of Mirrors. Among the most important selections and awards obtained in various film festivals: semi-finalist of the “San Francisco Arthouse Festival” (Maledictis), finalist of the “3 Generations Third Annual Youth Video Contest” (A Hall of Mirrors). Among the inspirations of his work are the cinematography of Akira Kurosawa, Andrei Tarkovski, but also the operas of Wagner, Verdi and Puccini, or Shakespeare's dramas such as Macbeth and King Lear.
Director: Piotr Kaźmierczak
Poland, 2’33″
LAF WFA
Synopsis: The simple story of a fisherman, a story of excessive ambitions and missed opportunities.
Profile: Piotr Kaźmierczak is 17 years old. Since 2015 he has been Animation has become his main passion. He creates original films using puppet, painting, cut-out, plasticine and computer animation techniques. He has won numerous animation competitions for children and young people in Poland and abroad.
Director: Doroteja Drevenšek
Slovenia, 5’08
Gimnazija Ptus
Synopsis: Why does the world need artists, or rather, why doesn’t it? We have combined the opinions of Instagram followers and Chat GPT to create a film about why we don’t need art. Only art has the power to question itself. Kill the artist. Eat the news, eat the world and create.
Profile: Doroteja Drevenšek is an 18-year-old student from Maribor. She has won several national awards for her poetry, but she is also a successful film director and theatre director. A theatre play she directed (Dogodek v mestu z Gongi) received an award for the best play among youth theatre groups in Slovenia. Her successes also include school and national awards for her films. The most important one she received was the first place of the jury at the youth film festival Videomanija 2023 for the film Korak (Step).
