This year it has been especially difficult to select short films for the festival due to the high quality of many of them. The quantity of films has been similar to the one of previous years and, luckily, the covid situation has not affected the participation. A total of 893 short films reflect the interest aroused by this festival, which places Vinaròs on the cinephile map, hosting productions from countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, the United States, Iran, Lebanon, Nepal, Turkey, Russia, and Morocco. The great variety of participating countries, 41 in total, has meant that the festival is especially international this year. The national short films in competition are 4 of the 12 selected.
To filter and select the best short films, it is necessary to distribute them among the members of the jury. In this first round, each member views around 110 – 120 short films until the deadline to deliver them. On average they last about 13 minutes. The doubtful ones are discussed in pairs to see if they can be preselected.
In the second round, the jury members review the preselected short films that are about 60. After that, following several steps, the jury decides which are the 12 selected for the contest and also those corresponding to Macedonia which quantity depend on the duration they have. In the end, in general, each member of the jury will have seen around 160-170 short films. It is a comforting task if luckily they are good shorts and not so much if the quality is lower, but it is always interesting. Many of them will be viewed several times by the jury members, losing their element of surprise in many cases, but allowing a greater appreciation of the details in most of them.
In the last 2 years, we have also selected movie phrases which are screened at the end of the short films in competition, and which are related to their topic.
This work brings, as a result, an attractive offer of audio-visual content in a nice environment and at a very attractive price. Currently, the ticket price is only € 1. I do not know if there is another short film festival with this price per ticket and, of course, that doesn’t happen with full-length film festivals. A difference that is difficult to understand taking in account that, in many cases, a block of short films is more entertaining than many full-length films.
The screenings of the finalist shorts will be on July 21, 22, and 23, and the award ceremony will be held on August 1. The 24th of July is reserved for the Macedonia section, which collects the short films not selected for the contest but considered interesting to show.
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