International Short Film Festival Returns to Rio de Janeiro

By Chesney Hearst, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Festival Internacional de Curtas do Rio de Janeiro (The International Short Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro) will return on November 4th for its 25th edition. Continuing through November 11th, the festival will feature free screenings of more than 280 international and national short films plus workshops, debates and lectures.

During the festival, short films will be shown in Cine Odeon in Centro; Centro Cultural Justiça Federal in Centro; and Cine Arte UFF in Niterói, with additional special programming at Casa Nuvem in Centro; CineCarioca Meir in Meier; and Cinemaison in Centro.

“In addition to the festival taking place again in Niteroi, the big news is that this issue will screen the largest number of Brazilian short films,” festival director Aílton Franco Júnior told O Globo. “We’ll have more than three hundred films, 180 of them will be national. With this, we will become the largest exhibitor of short films produced here and around the world.”

The festival’s films are divided into sections including national and international competitive sections, Latin American Panoramas and Carioca sections, and Special Programs, Retrospective, and Focus Mexico sections.

Notable films in the Brazilian competitive section include Leonardo Mouramateus’ “A Festa e os Cães,” which won the Festival de Cinema Latino de Toulouse; Bruno Carboni’s “O Teto sobre Nós”; Aly Muritiba’s “Tarântula”; and João Paulo Miranda Maria’s “Command Action,” which was the critcs’ weekly selection at the Cannes film festival.

The international competitive section will feature films from more than thirty countries and will include Dutch director Morgan Knibbe’s “Shipwreck.” Winner of the 2014 Locarno International Film Festival, Pianifica Award, “Shipwreck” tells the story of more than three hundred immigrants who drowned off the coast of the Italian island Lampedusa in 2013.

“The main purpose of the Festival Curta Cinema has always been to present the diversity and vitality of the national and international production of short films to the Brazilian public, highlighting the importance of short films for the establishment of an innovative audiovisual industry,” Júnior said in a released statement. “This year, we had about three thousand entries just for the competitive sections. But apart from the competition, all of the programming this year is significant, important and impactful, whether it’s award-winning or not.”

The special programming of the festival will include screenings that highlight the works of filmmakers Allan Ribeiro and Beth Formaggini. Additionally there will be a special human rights section of the festival this year with films focused on the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transexual) community as well as housing issues and conflicts faced by people with disabilities.

For more information and complete programming, see the festival’s official website.

What: Festival Internacional de Curtas do Rio de Janeiro
When: November 4th – 11th
Where: Various venues.
Entrance: FREE