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Short films on ANIMATIC

9 January 2019

The films "Água Mole" by Laura Gonçalves and Alexandra Ramires (Shah), "Ride" by Paul Bush and "Entre Sombras" by Mónica Santos and Alice Guimarães are selected for the ANIMAC Festival taking place in Spain from February 21 to 24 .

ANIMAC is an international animation festival in Lleida since 1996, which has become a reference in the creation of new cinematographic and animation techniques.

"Água Moler" will be featured on the official festival program and "Ride" and "Entre Sombras" are included in the session "MONOGRAPHIC SESSION STOP MOTION 1", a special selection of this edition.

Films of the Agency candidates for nominations of César awards

7 January 2019

"Entre Sombras" by Alice Eça Guimarães and Mónica Santos and "Como Fernando Pessoa Salvou Portugal" by Eugène Green are candidates for nominations for the César film awards, awarded by the French Film Academy.

The animation film "Entre sombras" by Alice Eça Guimarães and Mónica Santos and "Como Fernando Pessoa Salvou Portugal" by Eugène Green are candidates for nominations for the César film awards, awarded by the French Film Academy.

"Entre sombras", which won the Audience Award at the Curtas Vila do Conde festival in July, uses the technique of pixilation and stop motion with real actors, with interpretation by Sara Costa and Gilberto Oliveira.

The film has already been screened at various festivals, and has won a prize at the Animafest in Zabreg, Croatia, and the special jury prize at the Hiroshima Animation Film Festival in Japan.

Also in the list of pre-selected prizes, in the category of best short film, is the Portuguese co-production "Como Fernando Pessoa saved Portugal", by the director Eugène Green, with Carloto Cotta as the Portuguese poet.

The film premiered worldwide at Curtas Vila do Conde, and was also screened at the Locarno Festival in Switzerland.

The 44th edition of the César is scheduled for February 22.

Ricardo Jacinto's individual exhibition at Solar

19 September 2018

The Solar - Cinematic Art Gallery, in Vila do Conde, presents, between September 22 and November 3, "Cinco Filmes e Uma Máscara", an individual exhibition by Portuguese composer and artist Ricardo Jacinto. The opening will take place next September 22 (Saturday), at 6:30 pm.

Besides the permanent installation, which brings together five videos made by the artist and a mask, the exhibition project also includes the concert-installation "Medusa Spectrum", which will take place on September 29 at 7:30 pm., within the program of the 14th edition of Circular - Festival of Performative Arts and designed specifically for the space of this gallery.

Intersecting the musical and artistic practices, Ricardo Jacinto explores the possibilities of sonorous configurations of space, working with the specificities of the structures where he exhibits, such as Solar - Cinematic Art Gallery. Thus, the video installation, permanently displayed in the gallery, will be dialoguing with the musical work of Ricardo Jacinto and Nuno Torres, at the live performance titled "Medusa Spectrum".

Nuno Torres and Ricardo Jacinto have been collaborating continuously in the last years, sharing several projects in duo and in articulation with a vast group of musicians, among them Manuel Mota, Ricardo Guerreiro, Shiori Usui, Susana Santos Silva, C. Spencer Yeh, Diogo Alvim, João Pais Filipe, Gustavo Costa and Nuno Morão. Projects such as Cacto, Parque, Les Voisins, Eye Height and Temporary Territories have served as a motto for a musical and sound sharing with public presentation in several places such as CCB - Lisbon, Serralves Museum - Porto, Center Culturel Gulbenkian - Paris, Dance Base - Edinburgh, Culturgest - Lisbon and ZDB - Lisbon.

Ricardo Jacinto lives and works between Lisbon and Belfast and is currently a PhD student at the Sonic Arts Research Center. Graduated in Architecture from the University of Lisbon and in Sculpture and Visual Arts from Ar.Co. He also studied music at the Hot Clube de Portugal and the Academia de Músicos Amadores, in Lisbon. Since 1998, he has presented his work in individual and collective exhibitions, concerts and performances in Portugal and abroad, collaborating with artists, musicians, architects and performers. He is also founder of the OSSO cultural association.

Open call for Euro Connection 2019

18 September 2018

The next edition of Euro Connection will take place on February 5 and 6, 2019, during the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. This platform aims to support partnerships between European producers in the production of short films.

In each country, national correspondents evaluate all registered projects and choose the finalist project. Submissions for the next edition will end on October 20, 2018.

Projects must meet the following requirements:

- short animation, fiction or creative documentary;
- duration up to 40 minutes;
- the project must have part of its funding guaranteed by a third party (external source);
- the producer must be open to international co-productions (suitable design or co-production);
- filming or production should start as of May 2019;

An European jury composed by 3 industry professionals of different nationalities will then elect up to 13 projects to go to the final and present their pitching during the festival. The list of finalists will be announced to the winners by the end of November 2018.

Producers must submit their short film projects until October 20, 2018 to the representative of their country. In Portugal, the associated festivals are IndieLisboa and Curtas Vila do Conde.

All entries must be sent to:
Miguel Dias - mdias@curtas.pt
Miguel Valverde - miguel.valverde@indielisboa.com.

Check here the regulation and the application form.

Commercial premiere of "Mariphasa"

18 September 2018

The feature film by Sandro Aguilar, "Mariphasa", has a commercial premiere this week in Portugal. The film was premiered world-wide at the 25th Curtas Vila do Conde in 2017, and later went on to the Forum of the Berlinale.

The world premiere of "Mariphasa", by Sandro Aguilar, took place in the 25th edition of Curtas Vila do Conde in 2017. This week the feature film reaches the Portuguese commercial circuit of film screening.

Prior to "Mariphasa", Sandro Aguilar directed another feature film, "A Zona", which was launched almost a decade ago in 2009. During this time, the director focused on the format of the short film, with more than a dozen films, which have been screened and awarded worldwide.

At the Vila do Conde festival, Sandro Aguilar won the main prize of the national competition with "Corpo e Meio" in 2001, as well as the prize of a young Portuguese filmmaker with "Estou Perto" in 1998. He is considered one of the central names of Gerações Curtas.

Director and producer, Sandro Aguilar (1974) completed the Cinema course, specialized in Montage, of the Lisbon School of Theater and Cinema in 1997 and, a year later, founded the production company O Som e a Fúria. His films have won prizes at festivals such as La Biennale di Venezia, Gijón, Oberhausen and Curtas Vila do Conde and were exhibited in Torino, Belfort, Montreal and Clermont-Ferrand, among others. His work has been the subject of retrospectives at BAFICI, Rotterdam and the Arsenal Institute.

"La Chute", by Boris Labbé, wins 26th Curtas Vila do Conde

22 July 2018

The 26th edition of Curtas Vila do Conde - International Film Festival was announced this afternoon at the closing ceremonies of the festival. The great prize of the contest was delivered to the French animation "La Chute", by Boris Labbé.

The jury - composed by Laurence Boyce (film critic and member of BAFTA, FIPRESCI and European Film Academy), Aurélie Chesné (programmer for France Télévisions) and Nadav Lapid (writer and director In Focus) - considered the film "a piece of pure cinema (...) as if there was nothing but cinema" but "also an visual-music essay on life and death". The short film "La Chute" by Boris Labbé won the DCN Beers Grand Prix of the International Competition (which also competes with the National Competition films).

In the same competition, "Raymonde or l'évasion verticale", by Sarah van den Boom, was the winner of the prize for Best Animation; "Madness", by João Viana, was considered the Best Documentary; and Laura Moss's "Fry Day" was awarded the Best Fiction trophy. The Audience Award was awarded by the viewers to "Ce Magnifique Gâteau!" directe by Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels.

The Portuguese Ana Moreira, recognized as an actress and newcomer in diretion, won the Best European Short Film Award with "Aquaparque". The film was thus nominated for the European Film Academy's European Film Awards. Ana Moreira also won the Kino Sound Studio Award for Best Portuguese Director. In the words of the jury, the short film combines "nostalgia for the past and the literal and figurative emptiness of the present in a hypnotic and beguiling piece of work".

In the National Competition, which had 17 Portuguese films in competition, the winner of the Pixel Bunker Prize and Best Film in competition was "Where the Summer Goes (Chapters on Youth)" by David Pinheiro Vicente - a film that, according to the jury, is "an exquisite piece of work that combines the cinematic with beautiful, painterly tableaux".

The Audience SPA Award, for the Portuguese film with the best voting average attributed by the public, was attributed to the animation "Entre Sombras", by Alice Eça Guimarães and Mónica Santos.

In the Experimental Competition, the American director Morgan Fisher won the prize for best film with "Another Movie". The jury also awarded an honorable mention to the short film "Comfort Stations", by the couple Anja Dornieden and Juan David González.

At the Curtinhas, section for youngsters where the jury is made up of children, the MAR Shopping Short Prize was awarded to "The Highway Rat" by Jeroen Jaspaert. Honorable mentions were also awarded to the films "Ameise" by Julia Ocker and "Skyggebokser" by Andreas Boggild Monies.

João Pombeiro won the Music Video Competition with "Back to Nature" by Nightmares On Wax.

In the Take One! Competition, dedicated to school films, they were given to the short film "Amor, Avenidas Novas" by Duarte Coimbra, the IPDJ Prize, the Smiling Award, the Short Film Agency Award and the Restart Prize. The pair André Puertas and Ana Oliveira won the Blit Award for Best Director for the short film "A Ver o Mar". In the first edition of the Take One! European, with several European schools in competition, the Polish short film "Their Voices", by Eri Mizutani, won the prize for best film.

The winning films repeat, this Sunday, in the Municipal Theater of Vila do Conde, in sessions at 20:00, 21:30 and 23:00. The winners will also be presented, in different cities of the country, through the extensions of the festival.

The 26th Curtas Vila do Conde - International Film Festival has the support of Vila do Conde City Hall, the Ministry of Culture, the Cinema and Audiovisual Institute, the MEDIA / Creative Europe program and several partners that are essential to the festival.