About us

There seems to be a gap between the artistic level that the short film has reached and the average preparation about how such medium can be showcased in cinemas. Because a short film is not like a feature – that is apt to be screened alone, enough to justify a ticket – but it resembles more, in its ritual of reproduction, to a painting or a photography, which are made stronger if in interaction with other works.

In recent years, also thanks to some mainstream production, more and more people got accustomed to the form of short film, but not many have understood how such form is to be put in relationship to that of a museum curatorship, to a showcase or an art exhibition. The nature of the short film is twofold: to be shown alone – in case of works by prestigious and already established directors – and to be shown along with other resonating and similar films.

The latter option is what we’ve always explored with Short Days. creating a long and ongoing series of events that had at its center an idea of curatorship by an artistic director, that we usually draft from the newest, freshest generation of emerging filmmakers of our panorama. Many directors that three or four years ago have worked with us have then reached the highest level of the profession, working for Netflix, screening in Venice or whatever, but this is not yet another paragraph to brag about such talent forecasting skills.

What we do here is creating, every single time, a new screening experience, like a museum would host a new exhibition every time it opened its doors. Short Days is more like the latter than like a traditional festival. Our public is made of a very loyal group of filmmakers, industry professionals and spectators who have found our idea of having a new artistic director in every edition amusing to the point of returning. And the director who got involved along the way had a significant experience into understanding how a short film screening might work. We are looking for interaction that makes the art of the single film even stronger, for pathways that connect two, three, four short films into a two-hour program about something.

That something is up to the artistic director to be proposed and showcased, and every soul that makes this effort brings a peculiar verve to our events. We hope that you’ll find amusing to send us your film, to come at our screenings and to enjoy this cultural process, sharing with us the belief that film culture is essential to our times, where images are the most used form of language.

The artistic director,

Andrea Gatopoulos