TRA LE FOGLIE

Contemporary Italian Animation

Curator Pierpaolo Loffreda

BEST IN SHORTS has now reached its 7th edition at the Pesaro Film Festival. The non-competitive section, the result of an accurate selection, is dedicated to inventive, moving works made by Italian animation film-makers over the past few months: “Contemporary Italian Animation”, literally.

There is a substantial number of BEST IN SHORTS this year, some of which very short (to be included in one hour of total screening). Many works are signed by young and very young film-makers, very capable beginners, who are being trained in animation film at schools and institutes. The selection also includes the latest, qualified productions of some well-known film-makers - whose award-winning work has already circulated abroad – with whom the Festival has a special connection. All of them work like artisans, for many months, even years, in order to express themselves and present films of great imagination and originality, usually at festivals. These works are extremely diverse in terms of language, style, and techniques, which include hand drawing, stop motion, and visual experimentation. We believe all of them give the idea of the level of vitality, creativity, innovation, and research that many film-makers in our country are able to express in spite of the paucity of means and especially the ostracism exerted by the Italian establishment at their expense. In fact, the latter is particularly tight-fisted as regards the circulation of original works including in the audio-visual field (why doesn’t at least one of the public digital terrestrial television stations broadcast art-house animation shorts?) We would like to be able to contribute to the circulation of our film-makers’ works as we did in the past. We wish we could start working together in this direction, so that audiences see extraordinary works that otherwise risk falling into oblivion.

BEST IN SHORTS – Contemporary Italian Animation was made possible this year thanks to the fundamental partnerships with the Academy of Fine Arts of Urbino, the Fuorinorma Festival, the Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche of Urbino (with the animation courses conducted by Mara Cerri and Magda Guidi), the Ravenna Academy of Fine Arts, and the Urbino Istituto d’Arte Scuola del Libro.

BEST IN SHORTS 2021 will screen the following:
- Bleed di Igor Imhoff, 2020, 4’40”
- Studi: sulla complessitá e le differenze di Ilaria Pezone, 2016, 4’
- Lucciole di Ilaria Pezone, 2019, 1’55”
- Il mondo di sotto di Benedetta Sani, 2020, 4’
- The Fear in Your Eyes di Giacomo Sabatini, 2021, 3’45¨
- Dreamland di Gianluigi Toccafondo, 2021, 14’40”
- Tephra di Maria Luisa Cavallo, 2020, 2’50”
- Letale q.b. di Benedetta Baraldi, 2020, 1’10”
- Mare n’gannatore di Carola Pignati, 2020, 4’30”
- Ho cucito per te una coperta di occhi di pesce di Alice Bonora, 2020, 0’45”
- Tra le foglie di Giada Franceschelli, 2019, 0’50”
- Buon vento di Silvia Pasi, 2019, 0’25”
- Mentre tu dormi di Sara Paternicò, 2021, 1’15”
- Krampushnacht di Silvia Baccanti, 2020, 1’30”
- Pronta di Alessia Angelini, 2021, 3’50”
- Dots per Inch di Claudia Muratori, 2021, 1’45”
- Sempre nel cuore della classe 4C Scuola del Libro di Urbino, 2021, 2’20”
- Jadar di Amerigo Mancini, 2020, 3’05”
- Eyes Wild Open di Mila Dobrevska, 2021, 0’40”
- Il carnevale di Anica Kitanoska, 2021, 0’30”
- L’infinito di Simone Massi, 2021, 1’50”