Interview by Rui Pastorin
The Macau International Short Film Festival marks its 16th edition this year, this time receiving over 6,350 film submissions from 123 countries and regions, a ground-breaking figure in the festival’s near-two decade run.
Kicking off yesterday at Teatro Capitol, a total of 122 selected entries from the submissions will be screened until next Wednesday, ranging from documentaries to fiction. A total of 15 cash prizes encompassing the festival’s SHORTS (for short films) and VOLUME (for music videos) competitions are up for grabs, with the film garnering the “SHORTS Best Film of the Festival” award set to win 16,000 patacas.
Over 6,000 submissions from across the globe
Answering questions from the Post during an interview with English-speaking media after a press conference at the cinema yesterday, Festival President Paulo Canelas de Castro highlighted the joy brought to the organisation as they see the whole world represented through submissions by “123 countries and jurisdictions”, which in a sense represent all cultures and continents. There is also “heavy representation” from Macau, the Greater Bay Area (GBA), and elsewhere in China both in terms of figures and mounting quality.
With that regard, among the more than 6,000 submissions, nearly a quarter of the total record are from Macau and elsewhere in the GBA and the Chinese mainland, said Canelas de Castro –more than last year.
Canelas de Castro also pointed out that they were glad to see the festival enter its 16th edition, indicating that they are fulfilling the mission that they’ve had from the start: promoting local talent and industry, which had been initially “very fragile”. The event’s success over the years, marked by a growing number of films and record-breaking achievements this year, demonstrates that there is a clear demand for it and that it is fulfilling its intended purpose, he underlined. It also continues to promote local talents as well as enables them to “have a growing interaction with the outside world”.
Moreover, a growth in the number of submissions from Macau, the GBA and elsewhere in the Chinese mainland not only shows that they are delivering what is expected of them, but more importantly, serves as a “very powerful sign” that, particularly in Macau, there is a local industry that is responding to the challenge showcasing their talent and creativity globally by delivering increasingly higher quality entries. “This is a message that was very emphatically passed by all the members of the jury, and we are very happy for that”, Canelas de Castro said.
Canelas de Castro added that it was unanimously agreed among the jury that this year’s festival hits a “very high mark” in terms of the quality of the movies represented across the festival’s four categories, noting: “We are happy to indeed hit, I would say, a very high moment in the history of this festival”.
As the festival continues, Canelas de Castro concluded his remarks to the Post by saying why Macau is the most appropriate place to host it.
“Cinema is a universal language, and in a sense, it also promotes understanding between different cultures and different people, a dialogue between cultures and people. And in that sense, I believe that Macau is also the most appropriate place for this to take place because as we know historically, Macau is a place where East meets West, where different cultures enter into dialogue. And this is evidenced also in this particular context of the film industry, where we speak the universal language.
”It goes about creativity, it goes about emotions, it goes about narratives, it goes about experiences, but, of course, translating and evidencing the different cultural backgrounds, Macau could not be better in that for hosting this festival”.
The festival at Teatro Capitol on Rua de Pedro Nolasco da Silva (伯多祿局長街), runs through next Wednesday, with the schedule and list of films available on: https://www.macauinternationalshortfilmfestival.com/screening-schedule/.
The 16th Macau International Short Film Festival’s Director Menn Chow (周萬生; left) and Festival President Paulo Canelas de Castro (third from left), along with Grand Jury members Cosmo Wong ( right) and Julia Patey, look on as Grand Jury member João Francisco Pinto delivers his remarks during yesterday’s press conference at Teatro Capitol. – Photo: Rui Pastorin
