Agenda Venezia

Circuito Off - Venice International Short Film Festival

Venice, San Servolo Island
1-7 September 2007

From the 1st to the 7th September, Circuito Off - Venice International Short Film Festival is back in San Servolo Island. The short film island livens up for a week, asserting itself as the ideal window for young emerging directors.

Thanks to the staff’s ability, this event comes this year to its 8th edition, with competitions, auteur retrospective, special sections and side events. It’s also enriched by the prestigious contribution of Fondazione di Venezia, which is careful both to traditional Art development and activities and to vanguard and experimental works.

This year’s programme features two main news: the national competition Made in Italy – Fondazione di Venezia Award, created to give more space and visibility to Italian directors, and the Short Film Market, at its second year, a fundamental chance for directors to understand the mechanisms that govern the distribution of their works.

The eighth Festival has achieved three goals. The number of films received for the pre-selection phase (1,800) turns Circuito Off into the largest short film festival in Italy. The European Union Media Programme contribution, which is only granted to three other festivals in Italy. And finally, the admittance of Circuito Off in the FUS (United Fund for the Visual Arts), with the consequent granting of the Patronage and contribution of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage, Cinema Directorate.

As for the contents and the special guests, the star of this eighth festival is the French director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep), who will be tributed with a retrospective and with the national preview screening of the documentary About Michel Gondry by Jean-Louis Bompoint and Thierry Trelluyer. Further special features are: a whole night of screenings dedicated to Aardman, one of the most successful animation production company worldwide, which has produced, among others, the hilarious Nick Park’s films (Chicken Run). The tribute to Delicatessen director Marc Caro, and finally the tribute to video clips and ads through the works of Stephane Sednaoui.

The long standing cooperation with the Municipality of Venice continues also this year again, featuring the Queer section, with the support of the LGBT Observatory. This year the section will be dedicated to the guest festival: the Festival de Films Gays & Lesbiens of Paris. For the fourth running year the Short in Web on line competition is organized with the cooperation of the Municipality’s portal www.shortinvenice.net.

This year again, all holders of a Circuito Off accreditation will have free access, day and night, to the Short Film Island, thanks to ACTV. The festival will end on 7th September with a great Closing Party.

Photo: © Lorenzo Vitturi with Tankboys