In exactly a month’s time, we will be opening the 13th edition of Short Waves Festival, an international short film festival based in Poznań, Poland. The event is going to be presented in a hybrid format for the second time, inviting short cinema lovers to attend film screenings held locally in Poznań and online – on a special platform designed for online film festival hosting. This year’s festival motto – Mirror Mirror – also conveys the event’s dual character. The festival program encompasses 73 events and over 250 film screenings, including 88 competition titles. We are going to present films locally in as many as 20 locations – in addition to screening rooms, we will also be hosting open air events in 9 different locations! The festival’s digital version is a culmination of its online activities initiated on April 1st in the form of This Is Short platform prepared in collaboration with three European film festivals: Go Short (the Netherlands), Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (Germany) and Vienna Shorts (Austria). A collective streaming platform gave festivals the opportunity to spread their wings, reach a global audience and present over 300 short films on top of their individual selections. From 14 to 20 June, the platform is going to host the digital version of Short Waves Festival, presenting 120 films from all over the world, a carefully composed selection from the festival program adapted to home projection.
The festival in Poznań is going to be opened with an audiovisual event Kino Forma: Empty Cloud, featuring electronic music extraordinaire – Frank Bretschneider (live act). This year’s competition program contains 5 categories and a prize pool of 48 000 PLN. The selection committee has picked out 88 titles out of 1600 submissions that are going to compete for 12 awards in International Competition, Polish Competition, Polish Experimental Film Competition and two subject-focused competitions: Dances with Camera and Urban View. The Jury as well as the audience are going to select the winners, while the verdict will be announced during the Friday gala featuring performance from a special guest – stay tuned for more info!
The program contains two focus sections: Mirror Mirror (this year’s festival motto) is going to touch upon the subjects of the pandemic, the search for a new spirituality and the influence of the Internet on human relationships. The geographic focus presenting the cinematography of Austria was curated by the director of the most important festival in Austrian cinema – Diagonale. The Spotlight section will shed some light on interesting figures and institutions of contemporary short cinema – the works of Piotr Bosacki and Laurynas Bareiša, the dance films from DAN.CIN.LAB, as well as the projects of Kino Rebelde. The Four Perspectives on Solidarity program is a cinematic perspective on the concept of solidarity in reference to women’s rights, employee rights, people with migration experience and intergenerational integration. The program would have been incomplete without European Audience Award and European Film Award nominees. Screenings for the youngest audience members SWF for Kids are also making a comeback, prepared in collaboration with Cinema in Sneakers, as is the Senior Film Club and our cult favorite entertainment sets: Queer Shorts, Comedy Shorts, Kinky Shorts and Horror Shorts – the latter is going to be screened in an abandoned swimming pool complex in Poznań, while Electro Shorts pulsating with electronic music are going to be presented at Tama nightclub. We have also all been waiting for Short Waves’ flagship event – Random Garden Cinema – secret film screenings in unconventional locations across the city from apartment block courtyards to Poznanians’ private gardens, where the exact location is revealed on the day of the event.
For the second time at the festival, we are going to present VR technology films. Thanks to the support of Goethe Institut, VR: Sense of Place section is going to feature two titles that will be premiered at Venice Film Festival.
The annual Industry and Education program is also going to be presented in a hybrid format. The online segment will contain two discussion panels on gender equality in the film industry and the future of the festival network support program delivered by MEDIA – Creative Europe. Locally, in addition to networking events such as a coffee meeting with festival guests, we will be hosting several workshops. Collectively entitled as Fair Play, they are going to explore the subjects of body positivity, data protection and combating online hate speech. We will also be presenting workshops with international experts who are going to share their expertise in the fields of collective film programming (Suzy Gillet, Barbican London) and ethical and sustainable film event organization (Daniel Ebner, Vienna Shorts).
The festival is also a celebration and an opportunity to socialize – this year the wandering Festival Club is going to be located at Nurt by the Warta river and at Rewiry club, with performances from the local music scene staples and music video screenings from the Awesome Shorts section. On the last day of the festival, we will be relaxing on the meadows of Laba.Land to the ambient Sunday sounds – Sunbient if you will, reminiscing about the festival adventures of the past week.
In Poznań or online – let’s meet at Short Waves Festival!
Full program in the PDF format can be downloaded here:
