Macau’s annual international short film-fest is showing over 130 shorts for a week.
The 12th Macau International Short Film Festival press conference and opening ceremony were held yesterday at Teatro Capitol. According to the festival’s statement, the event is being held until next Thursday. Free admission screening sessions are being held from 2 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily.
The event is co-hosted by the Centre for Creative Industries – CREATIVE MACAU and the Institute of European Studies of Macau (IESM). It is supported by the local government and sponsored by a wide range of companies and institutions such as BNU, UM and USJ. IESM and Festival President José Luis de Sales Marques, Festival Director Lúcia Lemos, and TDM Programme and Production Division Controller Lok Kong (陸鋼) hosted the opening ceremony.
The statement said that the festival consists of 132 local and international shorts, with different genres such as fiction, documentary, animation and music videos. The statement added that the festival gathered most of the shorts through two competitions, SHORTS – International Short Film Competition and VOLUME – International Music Video Competition. The two competitions selected 113 shorts and six music videos out of about 4,000 submitted films, from Macau and elsewhere, as the final works known as the “Official Selection”.
The statement highlighted that “Official Selection” works are from Macau, the mainland and Taiwan as well as over 40 foreign countries such as Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, France, Greece, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, Portugal, the UK and the US.
According to the statement, there will be 14 awards for SHORTS. They are Best Film of the Festival; Best Fiction; Best Documentary; Best Animation; Best Student Film which is a film project of bachelor, MA or PhD film project in Fiction, Documentary or Animation.
Audience Award which viewers can vote for their favourite films in Fiction, Documentary or Animation; Best Local Entry; Macau Cultural Identity; Best Director; Best Music; Best Cinematography; Best Editing; Best Sound Design; Best Visual Effects. The statement pointed out that all films from the SHORTS category are competing for the Festival’s awards. Audiences can vote for their favourite films in Fiction, Documentary and Animation.
Aside from SHORTS, there will be three awards for VOLUME – Best Music Video; Best Song; Best Visual Effects, according to the statement.
The statement pointed out that the Festival has prepared five MasterClasses on different topics. They are Soundtrack Production; Film Production – Low Budget, Good Movies; Animation Film as a Career. Is it a Lucrative Profession?; PATUÁ SHORTS (澳門土生葡土短片) – Direction and Script from the Concept to the Show; A World Apart: Dissolving Borders and Building an International Creative Community.
When asked by The Macau Post Daily if participants needed to apply beforehand for the MasterClasses, Lemos said that everyone was welcome to join and the MasterClasses were free admission. She pointed out that the targets for the MasterClasses would be professionals or students who are involved in cinema studies, and people who want to know more about film making or cinematic techniques.
When asked whether the MasterClasses are a combination of theoretical and practical work, Lemos said that the organisers invited several professionals to upskill participants’ techniques in filmmaking. The classes, which run from today until next Wednesday, include technical parts such as soundtrack production.
For enquiries, visit www.MacauInternationalShortFilmFestival.com.
Macau International Short Film Festival President José Luis de Sales Marques (centre), Festival Director Lúcia Lemos (left), and TDM Programme and Production Division Controller Lok Kong (陸鋼) host yesterday’s press conference about the annual film-fest at Teatro Capitol. Photo: Ula Cheang
