More than 200 movies from all over the world will compete in the official section.
In this year’s edition, Italy will be the guest country; there will be a session of Historical Cinema with short films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, and a monographic session commemorating May 1968 short films.
BEYOND (Jeremy Haccoun)
The 44th edition of FILMETS Badalona Film Festival is already working on the last details to fill up the city with short films from the 19th to the 28th of October. Once again the Zorrilla Theatre will be the main base for the international short film festival, even though there will also be screenings at the Teatre Principal, at the Teatre Blas Infante and at the French Institute of Barcelona. The two sessions of Filmets Pro will be held at “El centre cultural El Carme”.
More than 200 short films from all over the world will compete in this year’s official section. There will be free entrance to all the sessions of the FILMETS Badalona Film Festival.
The FILMETS Badalona Film Festival’s official section consists of 24 sessions.
All short films competing for festival prizes will be presented during these sessions, and the winners will be announced Saturday the 27th at “La Nit de les Venus”.
Italy, this year’s guest country
In this year’s edition, Italy will be the festival’s guest country and the protagonist of the FOCUS FILMETS session Sunday 21st of October.
In this session several Italian short films will be screened, mostly in presence of their directors, in the Teatre Zorrilla.
Short films by Pier Paolo Pasolini at FILMETS
The emphasis of this edition on Italy continues Monday the 22nd at 19:00 with a historical cinema session where several short films directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini will be presented.
It’s an especially interesting session that will focus on Pasolini’s short films, which in contrast to his well-known feature films, have been seen by very few. They are starred, among others, by Ninetto Davoli, Silvana Mangano, Orson Welles, Domenico Modugno, Totó, etc…, and produced by Dino de Laurentiis.
French May 1968 in Badalona
In line with the commemoration this year of the 50th anniversary of the May 68 uprising, FILMETS dedicates a monographic session to this event through the Manifest session, which will be held Saturday the 20th at 19:00, showing a series of films related to the historical event that marked an era.
Both fiction and documentary short films – with real images filmed in the streets of Paris– will be screened, all of them considered unique documents.
FILMETS OFF, non-competitive activities
Within the FILMETS Badalona Film Festival, FILMETS OFF assembles all those activities which are off the competition. This includes the screenings of short films for schoolchildren in primary and secondary school, the sessions in the city’s libraries and the activities aimed at professionals from the audiovisual world.
The screenings for schoolchildren in Badalona will be carried out at the Teatre Blas Infante, where 6 sessions of Filmets Primaria will be held, directed to 3rd of primary schoolchildren, and 6 more sessions of Filmets Secundària, directed to 4th of secondary schoolchildren. These screenings for schoolchildren are a well-known city event and mobilize about 6,000 students during the festival week.
There will also be shown films in all the libraries in Badalona. Several animation short films will be presented there with the goal of bringing cinema closer to the children from all the city’s neighbourhoods.
Finally, the Centre Cultural El Carme will be the meeting point for professionals from the short film world. The workshop “Mou el teu curt” on Friday 26th at 16:30 will hold the presence, among other participants, of the members of the International Jury of FILMETS, who will give indications on how the authors of short films can introduce their films on the audiovisual market.
Nit de Les Venus
The culminating moment of the FILMETS festival is the “Nit de les Venus”, Saturday 27th at 20:00 at the Teatre Zorrilla. During this event, broadcasted by the Xarxa de Televisions Locals de Catalunya, this year’s awards will be disclosed- the traditional Venus de Badalona-, ending with the screening of the best short film.
Presence of short films that have triumphed in other European festivals
At the 44th edition of FILMETS, some selected short films from festivals like Cannes, Sundance, Berlinale, Clermont-Ferrand, Annecy, Venice, Brussels, Regard i Quebec will be presented in addition to other Bafta, César, Goya, Gaudí and Oscar award-winning films.
“The Silent Child”, awarded with the Oscar for best fiction short film in 2018, is set to open the festival in the presence of Chris Overton and Rachel Shenton.
The movie “Lunch Ladies”, presented by the film’s producer and writer Clarissa Jacobson, will close the festival.
Acclaimed actors and actresses on screen in Zorrilla
Apart from the actors and actresses already mentioned, other cast to be seen in this year’s edition include: Belén Rueda, Marcel Borràs, Macarena Gómez, Cristina Brondo, Bruna Cusí, Catherine Deneuve, Nausica Bonín, Assumpta Serna, Javier Gurruchaga and Maria Grazia Cucinotta, among many others.
