Nest opens its registration period for short films by film students

Nest, the competitive short film section of film students at the San Sebastian Festival which this year celebrates its twentieth anniversary, opens its registration period this June 1 and until July 1.

Organized by the San Sebastián Festival and the Tabakalera International Center for Contemporary Culture, the meeting aims to publicize the work of students from film schools around the world.

In last year's edition, thirteen short films competed in Nest, a section attended by 348 works presented by 165 schools from 49 countries around the world.

Each film school can submit a maximum of three short films made in the 12 months prior to the Festival, of which approximately fifteen are selected to participate in Nest. From among all the chosen works, a specific jury will award the Nest Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros for the director of the winning short film.

20 years of Nest

Nest is one of the most important sections of the San Sebastián Festival within its strategy to promote new talent.

It was born in 2002 as the International Meeting of Film Schools, later renamed the International Meeting of Film Students (EIECINE). This gesture of moving from schools to students was important, as it reflected the contest's interest in focusing on filmmakers and their works beyond the academic institutions in which they had trained.

In 2008 the section became co-organized with Tabakalera, which led to the creation of a specific platform for online registration. This technical detail marked the beginning of the new era of Nest, as it meant an exponential increase in the participation of short films and schools. Since its creation in 2002, the section has hosted a total of 310 selected short films.

Since then, the meeting has grown in ambition and has surpassed the perception as a minor section of the Festival. To do this, Nest was provided with the resources to demonstrate that it was a key section: a program of master classes by film professionals who shared their work processes (Bertrand Bonello, Nobuhiro Suwa, Marine Francen, Raymond Depardon, Todd Haynes, Christine Vachon and Albertina Carri) was added to the screenings of the participating works, and one more day was added to the section. In addition, the Nest awards were named at the Festival's closing gala and were added to the official list of winners.

Filmmakers such as Jerónimo Quevedo, Kiro Russo, Oren Gerner, Isabel Lamberti and Grigory Kolomytsev, who have subsequently presented their films at both the San Sebastián Festival and other competitions on the international circuit, began their careers in this section.