Psarokokalo International Short Film Festival travels to China!!
The Psarokokalo Travel Pack is dedicated to cultural exchange and boosting short film distribution worldwide.
This partnership with Chongqing Youth Film Festival—a major platform for supporting youth creativity and cinema—is a testament to the power of film to foster friendship and cooperation.
As the Chongqing Youth Film Festival beautifully says:
"山城来客，你我皆为电影内外的旅人..."
(Guests of the mountain city, we are all travelers inside and outside the film...).
Special Mention Irini
Zodiac
dir by Hans Buyse I Belgium
Zodiac is a story about two forty-year-olds, whose friendship and empathic abilities are put to the test when they go on a fishing trip together and encounter seven drifting refugees in distress in the middle of the sea.
Best Actress
Patsy Ferran
from the film "The Viewing" dir. by Nick Blake I United Kingdom
A house viewing spirals into a surreal nightmare for a young woman with a troubled past.
Best Documentary
Workers' Wings
dir. by Ilir Hasanaj I Kosovo
Accidented labourers are looking at us:
How do they feel? What are their hopes? What does the future hold for them?
Every line on their faces sculpted by life itself.
In contrast, a system filled with danger and injustice looms overhead.
Special Mention I Mexico
A Whisper Starts a Fire
dir. by Eduardo Moreno Fernández I Fiction
Olivia (Arcelia Ramírez, Cannes Award-winning "La Civil") feels a call to rebel when she discovers that, using artificial intelligence, her filmed testimonies for a documentary about her son's death have been altered. More than just questioning the use of AI in media, "A Whisper Starts a Fire" ponders upon when new technologies will be able to shape our deepest tragedies, with the times we are currently living between the border of reality and science fiction as its backdrop.
12th Chongqing Youth Film Festival
Established in 2014, Chongqing Youth Film Festival has been approved and endorsed by the government and has been listed as the key program of the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Chongqing Film Industry. Currently, it is one of the biggest and the most influential film festivals with comprehensiveness and professionalism in Western China.
Over the past eleven years, we have been honored to have invited director Xie Fei as the honorary chairman and Ani Choekyi as the curatorial consultant, Hai Qing, Guo Xiaodong, Tao Hong, Wen Qi, Yang Zishan, Hao Lei, Sun Yang, Deng Enxi and Huang Miyi as ambassadors. We have also been privileged to receive praise and support from more than two hundred outstanding filmmakers, including An Xiaofen, Cao Baoping, Teddy Chan, Gordon Chan, Fang Li, Ko Chi-sum, Gu Tao, Stanley Kwan Kam-Pang, Hong Ying, Jiang Wusheng, Lee Lik-chi, Li Ruijun, Li Xiaofeng, Li Yang, Li Yu, Liao Xi, Mei Feng, Rao Shuguang, Sonthar Gyal, Su Xiaowei, Sun Tao, Sheng Yanhong, Pema Tseden, Wang Xiaoshuai, Wang Yu, Tesuo Shinohara, Xin Yukun, Yang Chao, Daniel Yu, Zhang Dalei, Zheng Dasheng, Zhang Yang, Zhang Ming, Cheuk Pak-tong, and many others.
Up to now, over 1100 domestic and foreign films have been screened at Chongqing Youth Film Festival and more than 900 offline activities have been organized. Besides, more than one hundred universities around the world, over 30 cultural and creative parks and a considerable number of cinemas have taken part in this event, attracting over 500,000 offline participants and 300,000,000 online participants. Chongqing Youth Film Festival stands as a vital platform for creative exchange among young filmmakers.
The 12th Chongqing Youth Film Festival is sponsored by Chongqing Film Bureau, Chongqing Federation of Literary and Art Circles, People's Government of Chongqing, Shapingba District and Sichuan International Studies University; co-sponsored by Raffles City Chongqing; organized by Chongqing Film Association; and co-organized by Chongqing Film Group and Chongqing Film Production Industry Association. The film festival's major participants are film professionals and film lovers. It intends to encourage filmmakers to better express themselves and participate in art creation in order to facilitate the development and promotion of high quality films.