Gateway to cinema, driving force for young talents, fun and passion for established directors, short films are experiencing a great production season, touring festivals, getting noticed, becoming a hub for new generations of filmmakers, actors and technical crews.
The turning point has not yet been made for the final recipient, i.e. the public: there is not yet a cinematographic outlet, barring some exceptions.
On main platforms such as Netflix, the short still has a sporadic position which includes minifilms, while on other platforms the shorts are starting to circulate, from RaiPlay to Mubi to WeShort.
And the big news on Rai3 of a dedicated space is awaited.
It's a moving scenario that could have a great opportunity from the relaunch of auteur cinema in cinemas this season.
In Cortinametraggio (12-17 March) - says the young artistic director Niccolò Gentili - "430 arrived".
A high number, "with an average duration of 15 minutes, 90 percent of them are young people under 30".
Many of them are already working on their first feature film.
The overview of short-length cinema offered by the festival founded and chaired by Maddalena Mayneri, now in its 19th edition with Michaela Andreozzi, Nicola Prosatore, Tommaso Renzoni among the talents it has helped to bring out, is paradigmatic of what happens in cinema Italian.
There are few, very few female filmmakers, 4 for 3 titles out of 20 - proving that the glass ceiling on female directing is far from broken -;
there are few comedies that are experiencing a great identity crisis, now overtaken by the times those of easy comedy and therefore with a path to find originality, while often generational dramas abound and get noticed.
Of the 430 who arrived, the selection for competition number 19 chose 20 shorts, including six world premieres.
Alongside the young people (not necessarily first films) who manage to involve big-name casts such as Matilde Gioli, Francesco Di Leva, Giorgio Tirabassi, Francesco Montanari, Mirko Frezza, Emanuela Grimalda, to name a few, there are also casts made up of new talents of cinema Italian like Antonio Bannò (in the biting Un lavoretto facile facile), Giulio Brizzi (Fake Shot), Anna Bellato (Cannibal Happiness).
Out of competition in historical memory are Paolo Genovese and Luca Miniero, born advertising men, who successfully made the short film 25 years ago, Small things of unquantifiable value produced by the talent scout Gianluca Arcopinto and Incantesimo Napoletano and from there a launching pad for a great career.
Almost all of them are self-produced but then find production and distribution later: De l'Amor Perdu by Lorenzo Quagliozzi produced by Paolo Sorrentino and Simone Gattoni for Numero 10 and for Kavac Film, the touching Eldorado by Mathieu Volpe on clandestine migration between the Alps co-production with Belgium, Room 5 by Rosario Capozzolo on the days of Covid produced by Tramp Limited with Rai Cinema and three works by talents from the Experimental Cinematography Center (We should all be futurist by Angela Norelli all based on the silent film archive, I danced everything by Sarah Narducci, Fake Shot by Francesco Castellaneta on the trap scene. There is also a first short by two directors: Vera Munzi and Caterina Salvadori of Anemos, ZO by Loris G. Nese who used a particular hybrid animation for a story of memory in Salerno in the 80s, while L'acquario by Gianluca Zonta applies artificial intelligence to the search for sentimental encounters and the very current Dive on the war in Ukraine by Aldo Iuliano has passed to Orizzonti in Venice.
"The short film has enormous power - Paolo Genovese told ANSA - it allows a young person who is just starting out to be seen. Today you can also do it with a mobile phone, there is no longer an excuse for good stories".
"The market for short films is in the festivals - Saverio Pesapane of Prem1ere Film, the company that distributes films on the festival circuit, explains to ANSA - in Italy there are around 300, 18 thousand in the world: the short films live there, they travel the world, they get noticed and they make talents fly."
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