Shortscreen 2023
For their annual Shortscreen programme, Kortfilm.be and Offscreen present a selection of recent short films that meet the festival criteria: original, uncommon and bizarre.
After premiering at Locarno, and screenings in Sitges and Sundance, the Swiss The Newt Congress by Matthias Sahli and Immanuel Esser will stop by at Cinema Nova for its Belgian premiere! An absurd parable, based on Karel Čapek's science fiction classic War with the Newts, starring giant talking salamanders.
Three Belgian shorts will also be shown. In La Passante, Hannah Letaïf pours genres and styles into a cocktail of paranoia. Followed by the multiple award-winning NOISETRAIN by Pol De Plecker and very fresh animation work from Animal Tank with Eno Swinnen's AI-'love' story E6-D7, which premiered in Rotterdam at the beginning of this year.
At last, Yann Gonzalez' Queer Palm-nominated Hideous, a musical in three parts, is an unapologetic reckoning with the HIV stigma, starring queer icons Oliver Sim, Jimmy Somerville and Bimini. Prepare for a surreal journey of love, shame, and blood.
In the presence of filmmakers Hannah Letaïf, Pol De Plecker and Eno Swinnen.
Shortscreen is the annual collaboration between Offscreen and Kortfilm.be: a programme of short genre films in the spirit of the festival, thus edgy and surprising, and with a specific focus on Belgian films.
Programme
Programma
For years now, giant talking newts have been used both for labour and as laboratory animals. The Newt Congress takes place at a conference building surrounded by nature where participants have come together to optimise the exploitation of the animals. An absurd parable, adapted from the novel War with the Newts by Karel Čapek.
Closed in on all sides, The Passerby breaks free. By following a being who is completely opposite to herself, she embarks on a discovery of the improbable that will reshape her.
Three men, surrounded by sleeping passengers, wake up on a stationary train. When it leaves them behind in a desolate area, a journey through a graphic snowy landscape begins.
A sci-fi drama about a lonely machine who finds a kind of love in his advanced android successor. Can he handle loving someone who makes him obsolete?
Popstar Oliver Sim is the main guest of a talk-show that soon slides into a surreal journey of love, shame and blood. A three-part musical short.