SICIF’16 | 1,650 worldwide entries in second edition

(From left) Mário Dorminsky, José Sales Marques, Lúcia Lemos and Joao Francisco Pinto

The Sound & Image Challenge International Festival 2016 (SICIF’16), the second edition of festival, commenced yesterday with a concert “Aeolian Scriptures” performed by a Hong Kong ensemble.

The opening ceremony was held at the Dom Pedro V Theatre. The festival will run until Sunday.

This edition of the festival received some 1,650 worldwide entries, more than double that of last year, according to the festival director and project manager of Creative Macau, Lucia Lemos.

José Luis Sales Marques, president of the Institute of European Studies of Macau (IEEM and the organizer of the event, told the press yesterday at a conference that the festival aimed at bringing something new to Macau’s image.

“Someone coming from outside may not know the treasures that we have here, so we decided to turn this competition into a festival,” he said.

63 short films and music videos – mainly from North America, Europe, the Middle East, China and Macau – will be screened during the six-day festival.

The jury shortlisted 33 films from the “Shorts” section of the competition and eight music videos for the “Volume” section.

Audience members who attend tomorrow’s “Shorts” screening session at the Dom Pedro V Theatre will be able to vote to determine the winner of the “Public Favorite Award”.

The screenings begin today with the Portuguese Short Film session, featuring Leonar Teles’s “Batrachian’s Ballad”, which was awarded the 2016 Golden Bear for Best Short Film in Berlin International Film Festival.

The Southeast Asia Short Films session showcases short films from Singapore, Philippines and Thailand.

The “Extra Films Screenings” today features three short films from Macau directors: “ERIC – You will never walk alone”, a documentary directed by

António Caetano Faria; “Tricycle Thief”, a feature film directed by Maxim Bessmertnyi; and “Always Online”, by Chao Wai.

SICIF’16 has this year provided a platform for local bands to upload original compositions for foreign and local directors to produce a music video featuring that composition.

The submissions fall under the “Volume” category, which will be screened on Friday and followed by a session of Chinese animation shorts.

“I think this is also a good way to promote music making in Macau,” said Marques.

According to him, the festival is a platform for interaction between foreign and local filmmakers, which could lead to potential collaborations.

“This is a festival that tries to internalize this process [of] culture, knowledge and technology of filmmaking into Macau. [There is] something to learn from each other, but everybody has something to gain,” the organizer said.

When asked whether there have been issues with SICIF’16’s schedule overlapping with the Macau International Film Festival Awards – which commence tomorrow – Lemos hinted that the effects would mainly be in terms of local filmmakers’ attendance, but that SICIF’16 would retain its quality and structure.

All screenings are in their original language with English subtitles. Admission is free for all activities.

The winners will be announced at the Gala Awards Ceremony this Friday.

The festival, which has a development budget of over MOP500,000, will be held at Dom Pedro V Theatre until December 9, and will be relocated to Cinematheque Passion during the weekend.