Bye 2021! End of the year. Time for sum-ups and resolutions, self-reflections, and pensiveness… ok, boring! But it is worth to stop for a while and look back. Despite the ongoing pandemic and the threat of another lockdown coming up resulting in closure of cinemas or limiting cinematic events – it was a hell of a year for us! A kaleidoscope of sensations, experiences, and changes:
Moving out! New office and new headquarters of Short Waves Festival in ZAMEK Culture Centre in Poznań. The beating heart of Short Waves Festival, where all the magic happens: festival/guest/press offices are here, festival screenings in Pałacowe Cinema and so much more. We are closer to our audiences, close to you!
New visual identification! Short Waves Festival has been continuously developing, rebranding, evolving, and trying to find its own space, identity, and crowd. It was high time for a total makeover! Identification that is fresh, modern, coherent, cutting edge and flexible enough to be in use all year long, came to life as a result of our collaboration with Poznań based digital design & branding studio Uniforma (cheers!) and has already been awarded in many prestigious competitions! Cool kids only!
This Is Short! Is co-creating a brand-new online platform with short films only 3 months ahead of the festival is a particularly clever idea? Well, it was quite a ride but if we could turn back time, we would not change a thing and hop on this amazing journey once again. 3 months, 4 festivals and hundreds of short films – it’s This Is Short (1.04-30.06.2021) – a VOD platform designed as a festival experience, funded thanks to EU funds and co-created with three other European short film festivals: Go Short (Netherlands), International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Germany) i Vienna Shorts (Austria). Lots of work, tons of satisfaction and we are already trying to figure out of how to power This Is Short 2.0… Stay tuned!
13. Short Waves Festival! 73 events, 20 locations, close to 300 films and over 8.000 audience members in Poznań & ONLINE. For the 7 days of June, audiences in Poznań and on the internet could experience impressions associated with short films together! It was the biggest edition in the festival history, the bar is set high, but fearlessly and with fresh energy we are already working on the 14th Short Waves Festival in June 2022 (14-19.06) under its official motto: Light a Spark / Wystarczy iskra!
More short films, gimme more! 13th SWF was done, sealed, delivered but we did not rest on our laurels. Short Waves Festival is active all year long! Together with the Ad Arte Foundation we have co-coordinated several other short film focused initiatives and events. We have organized film screenings all over Poland and online, played a role of a short film distributor, programmed short film sets for other festivals. It is impossible to mention it all, but we are not going to slow down!
Travels! Which is what we love the most! SWF Team wandered around the globe and visited other film festivals looking for inspiration and short film novelties, we have been members of the Jury of international competitions, we took part in many industry workshops and meet-ups. Only in 2021 you could have met us in Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Kosovo, Macedonia, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy and of course Poland at over 20 film festivals.
Toss a coin to your Short Waves Festival, Oh, Valley of Plenty! And all that would not be possible without the funding and trust of public institutions which continuously support the Ad Arte Foundation and Short Waves Festival. Kudos to the City of Poznań and the President of the City of Poznań (each year SWF is honored with the Presidential Patronage as well!), Marshal’s Office of the Greater Poland Voivodeship, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland and Creative Europe – MEDIA. Thank you!
Oh, we have been busy but it’s a wrap! What more can we say, we like to have our hands full with work and we absolutely love to share our passion for short films. Thank you for being with us and we hope to see you again sometime soon. We wish you Happy Holidays and a Great New Year! 2022 – BRING IT!
PS You can submit your short film for SWF 2022 now! Open call will be open until March 15. More info on our website HERE!
Short Waves International Short Film Festival will be taking place for the fourteenth time from 14th to 19th of June in Poznań, as well as online. The festival’s 14th edition will be paired with a motto Light a Spark / Wystarczy iskra which after almost two years of the pandemic inspires a fresh perspective on reality, creative energy for change, as well as an inventive and experimental approach to film. The program, heavily influenced by the motto, is going to contain both the familiar favorites and new elements – stay tuned for more info!
