Culture in Poznań

Culture

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Outside the Box

The eleventh edition of the Short Waves Festival is around the corner, this time under the motto "Outside The Box". The focus programme will direct our collective gaze to an unexpected place: South-East Asia. Seize the opportunity and delve into a world of stories, documentaries, animations, video clips and experiment.

. - grafika artykułu
Shortwaves, photo: W Kadrze / Piotr Bedliński

The festival describes itself as the most content-packed short film festival there is. And deservedly so, as every year this six-day event features over 60 events and screens 300 films from across the world, attracting a staggering audience of 7,000 short-film fans. The screenings are held in a variety of venues, some of them unconventional, outside of cinemas (which are used for competition screenings), such as the festival club set up in House Szkolna (video clip showings, and DJ sets on Fridays and Saturdays) and private homes around Poznań ("secret home parties", very popular with viewers in previous years). To cater to all the members of an equally diverse viewing public, the programme also includes movies for children, seniors and the disabled.

"The Short Waves Festival is entering its second decade with a bang. While we will continue to nurture our old time favourites: the Polish Competition, the International Competition, the Random Home Cinema and Dances with Camera, we also plan to venture into new and unknown territory", say the organisers.

In the competitions, film makers will compete in the four categories of International Films, open to films from around the world, with running times of up to 30 min.; Polish Films, dedicated exclusively to Polish productions; Dances with Camera, a unique dance film competition; and Urban View, featuring films on architecture and urban space. The total value of prizes in all competitions is PLN 52,000. The winners are chosen by an international jury and the public. All films will be shown with Polish and English subtitles. Films from the Deaf Shorts section, for all those interested in disability, will be rendered in sign language.

At the invitation of the Short Waves Festival, Curator John Badalu prepared three programmes on Asia. A total of 16 films from artists from Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam will be featured in the three categories of Southeast Asian Delights, New Frontier and Sex, Myth & Family.

Other attractions include special and off-competition shows, among them films nominated for Oscars or the European Film Award, meetings and inspiring talks with festival guests and two debates: Film Art Outside the Box, on new curation practices, and Short and to the point: Film Criticism, on film criticism in the short-film industry. True film aficionados get a treat in the form of the Movie Brunch - a unique opportunity to meet the curators of European festivals.

Delve into a world of stories, documentaries, animations, video clips and experiment.

Anna Solak

translation: Krzysztof Kotkowski 

Short Waves Festival 2019

19-24 March

For more, see www.shortwaves.pl

© Wydawnictwo Miejskie Posnania 2019