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KINEMASTIK 15th INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2019

For our 15th anniversary Kinemastik premiered a programme of exciting, relevant and groundbreaking short films at our International Short Film Festival.

25th, 26th and 27th July.

On the main screen of KISFF, we screened a selection of 17 films from 12 different countries in competition. Programmed by Emma Mattei, the main screen showcased a selection of international festival winners from Berlinale, Cannes, Venice, Visions du Reel and Clermont Ferrand, as well as from emerging and local filmmakers.
2019’s films are preoccupied with identity – self versus the ‘big other’ – from rappers in China grappling with censorship to throngs of people on board cruise liners, the current trend in short film is one of exploration – how do we step away from the density that invades our daily lives, both in reality and virtually, and fight the waves of populism by finding one’s own space? Be it in the most intimate way, as seen in the Spanish film Watermelon Juice, or as part of a creative community, as expressed in the film Rise, this year’s films communicate a sense of a global concern, an urgency for the assertion of small freedoms, for one’s truth – no matter the cost.
The audience once again had their chance to vote for their favourite film in our audience award. The festival winner was selected by an international jury awarding the much coveted Golden Dot trophy.
You can see this years programme HERE (or just keep scrolling).
You can find out about this years jury HERE.

KISFF is supported by the Malta Arts Council through the Cultural Partnership Agreement.

THURSDAY 25TH

IN PRAISE OF NOTHING
A satirical documentary parable about Nothing, in which Nothing, tired of being misunderstood, runs away from home and comes to address us for the first and the last time.
Directed by Boris Mitic.
Narrated – in wall-to-wall rhymes – by Iggy Pop.

FRIDAY 26TH

Day one began with sunset drinks soundtracked by Felix from Berlin, as soon as it got dark (and before the party took over) we began the first day of our programme. Highlights included Watermelon Juice by Irene Moray, a gentle and natural depiction of real issues and real people, and All Inclusive by Corina Schwingruber Illic, an unflinching and superbly edited gaze at life on board a cruise ship.

After the screenings Dean Wengrow began the nights party (mix below), followed by Kapitol K.

SATURDAY 27TH

Another day another sunset to welcome the start of day two of our screenings. This evenings we were excellently soundtracked by jury member Glen Mcleod until the films began.
Both halves of the programme contained winners, with the official jury selection and winner of The Golden Dot trophy Trapped In The City of a Thousand Mountains by David Verbeek in the first half. This was follwed after the intermission by local director Fabrizio Ellul’s Filfla – winner of the audience award.

The rest of the evenings proceedings were begun by a live perfoirmance from Fattima Mahdi, followed by DJ’s Nigel Baldachino, Steph VR, Lucie Grace and Uncle Al.

Our 2019 Jury:

Roxman Gatt (b. 1989, Mosta, Malta), lives and works in London. The multidisciplinary artist’s work encompasses, text, painting, 3D, video, sound, photography, sculpture, installation and performance. Roxman’s research explores sexuality, identity, gender and consumption. Most recently the artist has been working with themes of humanising and interacting with consumer objects. Making the inanimate iconic and fetishised. Mundane aesthetics and the internet become both a tool and a trigger to produce work. Roxman was awarded the Chris Garnham Prize (2015) as well as the Magnum Showcase Online Photography Award (2013). Recent exhibitions include: Up is a Relative Concept, Fold, London, Uk, Perfiction, Harlesden HighStreet, London, UK, Drawings, 650mAh, Brighton, UK, Visions, Programme 3 | Bedwyr Williams, Nunnery Gallery, London, UK, Here & Now, Valletta Contemporary, Malta, MT, The Well, Open School East, Margate, UK, Homo Melitensis: An incomplete inventory in 19 Chapters, Malta Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice, IT, The Sacred 419, The Square Gallery, London, UK, Bloomberg New Contemporaries, ICA, London and Bluecoat Liverpool (2016).

Glen Mcleod is a Senior Creative Producer for Grey London, overseeing campaigns for clients such as Volvo, Emirates and HSBC. He has been on the judging panel for the Creative Review Photography Annual and the Getty Images Prestige Grant. He has a passion for film, with an even bigger passion for Twistees and swimming in Xlendi Bay.

Mark Mangion is an artist and independent curator based in London. He has exhibited internationally including the Thessaloniki Biennial, MAXXI Rome and ICA london. He is also the founder of Malta Contemporary Art.

Antonio Tufigno has ever since his earliest days been a lover of all things unnecessary and mundane. A compulsive collector of collections, he is keen on all cultural forms and engages haphazardly in anything mildly interesting.
The human equivalent of a tumbleweed, he will roll and land anywhere there is a human gathering, leaving a characteristic trail of hair along trodden paths.
An avid observer of ants and their social mores, he has however never overlooked the pleasures of displacing cockroaches and beetles from their habitats and studiously observing their reactions to novel spaces and confines.
Our subject enthuses on inner-harbour decadence and records it photographically. He may be spotted later dancing robotically, in very short shorts, between graves.

Lisa Gwen Baldacchino is a curator of words and an editor of spaces. Her work and her projects are the outcomes of these often overlapping and interchangeable roles. After all, either deals with space and its distribution; with aesthetics, design, interpretation and experience. One focuses on words and type, the other on artworks and installations. Both create images and visuals; both deal with narratives.
Besides an innate passion related to all fields of visual art, Lisa loves playing local tourist. She explores sites and spaces, scrutinising the natural, the built and the ‘other landscape’, through a camera lens.
Lisa has a background in Art History and Cultural Management, and currently works as an Associate in the Strategy and Funding team at Arts Council Malta; she is the founder of the MaltaDoors project.