The 11th Macau International Short Film Festival, featuring a total of 132 films, officially opened yesterday at the Dom Pedro V Theater.
The theater will be the center stage of this year’s event.
Having received more than 4,200 film submissions, the festival will be held until December 8, with a closing ceremony on the last day, featuring a percussion performance by local musician Hoi Lei Lei, followed by the Gala Awards Ceremony.
On the sidelines of the opening press conference yesterday, José Luís de Sales Marques, the president of the festival, disclosed that among the 4,200-plus submissions, quite a number were about the Covid-19 pandemic. “Not all, but quite a lot were set against Covid-19,” the festival president pointed out.
Lúcia Lemos, the director of the festival, stressed that the festival was created in an attempt to support and showcase small independent short films on low budgets, usually with a less famous cast.
“Up to this time, it mobilizes a great significant number of audience [members] and that encourages [stakeholders] to keep the industry alive,” Lemos remarked.
All of the winning films will be screened after the Awards Ceremony. The evening will start at 5:30 p.m. on December 8.
The films screened during the festival will include local and international short film productions. It aims to highlight those made with limited resources that nevertheless achieve an impressive quality.
The event will also include two masterclasses for film directors, students, young professionals and enthusiasts.
The first masterclass will be held at 5 p.m. on December 5 and will be conducted in English. It will be presented by Professor João Nuno Brochado, who is a movie director originally from Portugal but now based in Macau. He will talk about ways to make quality movies with a tight budget, which many in Macau are doing.
The second masterclass will be held at 5 p.m., December 6, and will be presented by local movie director Oliver Fa and moviemaker Dr Fernando Lourenço.
The title for this session is “From ‘Zero’ budget to ‘Some’ budget: The difference, the similarity and the growth.” It will be conducted in both English and Cantonese.
Both masterclass sessions will be 60 minutes in duration.
The festival was kicked off with a concert featuring local metal band Blademark, followed by a presentation of the festival’s program and the screening of two comedy films: Amore, Non È como Pensi from Italy and Summertime from France.
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