Streaming: December 18-23
On the occasion of December 21st, the shortest day of the year, join us online starting on December 18th for a captivating streaming event featuring a delightful program of quirky, amusing, and insightful short films that showcase the best emerging talents in Italian cinema. The Italian Cultural Institute of Washington, in collaboration with Centro Nazionale del Cortometraggio (Italian Short Film Center), is excited to celebrate International Short Film Day.
This year we present a selection of six Italian contemporary shorts of different genres, all of them acclaimed by International Audience. This program will be available until December 23, 2023.
Various Directors
Total runtime: 86 minutes
Shorts in English and Italian with relevant Subtitles
LOCATION: online streaming
PLEASE NOTE: Streaming is available between December 18th at 10:30 AM (ET) and December 23rd at 10:30 PM (ET). After unlocking the film, you have 24 hours to start viewing, and from the time you begin watching, an additional 24 hours to complete it. All streaming will end at 10:30 PM (ET) on December 23rd, please plan the time you start watching accordingly.
Content available ONLY in the United States
THIS YEAR’S SHORTS
IL MARE CHE MUOVE LE COSE (The Sea that Moves Things), Lorenzo Marinelli
2023 – 14′ – fiction
Max is the owner of a seaside establishment; everything changed when he discovered he has Parkinson’s disease. A meeting with an African boy will give him the opportunity to react to the pain, to set it aside, to understand that he is still capable of taking care of others.
L’ISOLA DEI RESUSCITATI MORTI (The Island of the Resurrected Dead), Domenico Montixi
2022 – 20′ – fiction
1970s. A group of rough mercenaries, led by a provocative and ambiguous Doctor, an indomitable journalist, and a determined young woman, venture onto a tropical island in search of a missing renowned scientist. Unbeknownst to them, the unfortunate group is in the dark about something terrible and supernatural happening on the island. Will our heroes manage to find the professor and uncover what is going on? But most importantly, will they survive?
BALAENA, Alessia Lupo Cecchet
2022 – 8′ – fiction
A beached whale encounters its simulacrum while other intruders observe, collect, dissect, and take selfies. A woman seeks closure. Blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction, the film explores the changes caused by progress and post-industrial capitalism through an experimental lens: It is time to bid the whale a final farewell.
GIVE UP THE GHOST, Alessio Bozzer
2022 – 16′ – fiction
A young man seeks refuge in a small mountain house owned by his father to process the grief of losing his daughter. However, in that isolated, timeless place, the pain continues to haunt him. By chance, he finds an old Super 8 film camera in the house with some unused film. Intrigued, he films in the surrounding woods. But once the film is developed, he makes the shocking discovery that, for a few frames, his daughter appears in the footage. That film camera becomes his obsession.
L’ETOLOGA (The Ethologist), Martina Selva
2022 – 13′ – fiction
How to be human? This is the question Anna asks herself on a sweltering summer afternoon, searching for herself and for secure answers. A surreal encounter with the animal world will lead her to the inevitable acceptance that there are no instruction manuals.
JOCU, Marco Santi
2022 – 15′ – fiction
Villarbasse, November 20, 1945. Four shady individuals with covered faces break into a farmhouse to commit a robbery. Fiorina and Francesco seek refuge under the kitchen table without knowing what to do. The criminals find nothing and succumb to the pressure of the situation. That farmhouse soon transforms into a theater of horrors.