The Short Film Week of the Community of Madrid returns with 118 films

It will be held from May 21 to 27 in 46 points in the region with free admission and will include workshops, colloquiums and professional meetings.

The Community of Madrid organizes one more year the Short Film Week, which will celebrate its 14th edition, from May 21 to 27, in 46 spaces in 24 municipalities in the region. The regional government has expanded this exhibition this year by adding new exhibition spaces. The 118 scheduled films can be seen, in addition to the Cinema Studio of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, in places as diverse as libraries, municipal cultural centers and prisons.

The central axis of this new edition of the Week will be the Community of Madrid Short Film Exhibition, in which the 28 short films subsidized by the Community of Madrid will be screened. The theme of the productions, which can be seen in the Cinema Studio of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, is very varied with works of fiction, animation and documentaries. Admission will be free until capacity is reached.

Like every year, the week will feature the participation of guest festivals, which on this occasion will be Oberhausen and Sitges. From the first, one of the most important in Europe, will come a selection of works from the international and national competition that show the essence of the contest. In the case of Sitges, one of the most prominent festivals on the world stage dedicated to the fantasy genre, you will be able to see the Spanish short films submitted to the 2010 and 2011 editions. The screenings will also be held at the Cinema Studio of the Círculo de Bellas Artes.

For the little ones, thanks to the collaboration with Animaula, Cuentamundos will be screened, a collection of jewels of traditional world animation unpublished in Spain, which is included by UNESCO in the 'International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures'. The sessions will take place in libraries and cultural centers in the Community of Madrid.

Training and distribution support activities

In addition, various activities will be carried out with the aim of increasing the dissemination of the short film. Thus, this year special attention will be paid to new technologies with the celebration of a day that will unravel the tools and keys to using the Internet as a new business model through the financing, exhibition and distribution of short films. Within the training sessions, there will be the presence of Borja Cobeaga, film director and screenwriter nominated for an Oscar for his short film Éramos poco, who will be in charge of the master class for this 14th edition. Miguel del Arco, theater director, among others of the play Veraneantes, which has recently received five Max Awards, as well as several short films, will explain the intense relationship that currently exists between audiovisuals and theater.

As a novelty, this year three universities will participate in this short film week: the programming will reach the European University of Madrid, the Rey Juan Carlos University and the Antonio de Nebrija University. In addition, other spaces, such as Madrid prisons, where the screenings of short films will be followed by a presentation of the film, by the short filmmakers themselves.

Another novelty this year will be the tributes to two fundamental people in the recent history of short films: Pepe Jordana and Leon Siminiani. Jordana is a producer for the Madrid company Proposopeya and responsible for the production of short films, among others, by Eduardo Chapero Jackson. Siminiani is a short film director recognized with countless awards and has been a finalist this year for the Goya for Best Short Film for El Premio.

Finally, note that on Saturday, May 26, the Awards Gala will be held, in which the 'Madrid en Corto' Awards will be awarded, which will promote for one year, both nationally and internationally, the eight short films that will be selected by a professional jury among all the films subsidized by the Community of Madrid in 2011.

The six 'Telemadrid/LaOtra' Awards will also be awarded, which represent 9,000 euros for the first prize and 6,000 euros for each of the remaining five, in concept of broadcasting rights. And the 'Canal Foundation Microvideo Awards', dedicated to videos with a maximum duration of one minute, which this year have the motto 'Eat the water', and which will be awarded the First Jury Prize (2,000 euros) and the Second Jury Prize (1,000 euros).