The Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF), which will take place from 13 to 23 October this year, is announcing the festival's International Short Film Competition programme. This year, 24 works of different genres will compete for the festival’s Silver Grass Snake Award and to be a candidate for the prestigious European Film Academy’s (EFA) European Short Film 2023 Award.
The RIGA IFF International Short Film Competition programme is divided into four sections: The Beginning of the End, Heaven and Hell are Places on Earth, Remake/Remodel, and She/He/They.
The competition’s international jury is made up of Anne Gaschütz, Director of Filmfest Dresden and member of the selection committee for the Pardi di domani competition at the Locarno Film Festival, Sander Joon, an Estonian animation director and the winner of the SHORT RIGA Test Screenings 2021 whose film Sierra qualified for the Academy Awards, as well as Inja Korać, a short film curator at the Motovun and Beldocs Festivals and Director of Industry at the Zagreb Film Festival. The films screening in the International Short Film Competition are competing not only for the RIGA IFF Silver Grass Snake Award, but also to be chosen as candidates to the European Film Academy’s (EFA) European Short Film 2023 Award.
Among the short films in competition, you can find the bitingly ironic Lithuanian meta-documentary Cherries, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival, and Francesco Montagner's poetic observation Asterión. Short films’ powerful ability to address contemporary issues is evident in the short film Handbook, which is dedicated to the wave of protests in Belarus in 2022, and Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles, which illustrates the reality of the ongoing war in Ukraine (director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s feature film Pamfir is part of the festival’s FOCUS ON UKRAINE programme).
The full programme can be found on the festival website: rigaiff.lv/isfc
RIGA IFF receives support from the State Culture Capital Foundation, the Riga City Council, the National Film Centre, and Creative Europe MEDIA.
For more information:
RIGA IFF Communication Department
press@rigaiff.lv