We are happy to say that we agree with one of our favourite festivals, Budapest Shorts to present their great archive collection, in order to make a good publicity for the upcoming festival, which will be in 3-7. September, obviously in Budapest.
At the same time, the festival’s competition program is ready. 90 of the 620 entries has been selected into the competition program (50 of these are fictions, 30 are animations, 10 experimentals), but further 130 films (90 fictions, 20 animations and 20 experimental films) has gained the right to be screened in the information program. You can find it here.So come to the beautiful city of Budapest in September, watch short films and get long bangs. Till that, you can taste the best BuSho films here!
Each year a certain selection of short films has the honor to be presented at one of the most prestigious festival of the world - Cannes Film Festival. As we are mostly dealing with short films, the selection of this year’s short film programme tells us a lot about current trends and tastes.
The main competition has :
411-Z (Dániel Erdélyi) Hungary
A barge on the Danube. A carefree summer day. Stew in the pot, and a little wine and soda to wash it off. Other than that, everything is strictly according to the shipping regulations, of course. But something might have gone wrong…
Good Trip (Javier Palleiro, Guillermo Rocamora) Uruguay
Sandra works as a collector of tolls. Her life and job are very monotonous. A phone call will break the routine, and she will be faced with a life changing decision. Sandra works as a collector of tolls. Her life and job are very monotonous. A phone call will break the routine, and she will be faced with a life changing decision.
De Moins En Moins (Mélanie Laurent) France
Lisa, a young woman, tries to remember moments in her life with the help of her doctor. Voices resonate, images intermingle… moments of happiness suddenly appear.
A few seconds later, she has already forgotten.
The disease progresses. Life fades away.
The Desire (Maria Benito) Mexico
Ana, a fifty years old woman falls into a depression when her husband leaves her. One day she decides to go out of this depression and starts changes from the outside to the inside. With the wakeness of desire she starts a process in wich she rediscovers her new sexuality.
Jerrycan (Julius Avery) Australia
Nathan, a kid who risks everything after he is bullied into making a life and death decision.
Love You More (Sam Taylor-Wood) United Kingdom
Summer, 1978. London.
Georgia sits in a Geography class covering her exercise book with graffiti. Her classmate Peter watches her with longing.
Georgia turns and catches him - but ignores his gaze.
Megatron (Marian Crisan) Romania
Maxim lives together only with his mother in a village near Bucharest. It’s Maxim birthday. He’s turning 8. For the birthday party, his mother will take him to Bucharest, to Mc Donalds. Maxim will do anything to meet his father who lives in the city
My Rabit Hoppy (Anthony Lucas) Australia
Henry’s ‘Show and Tell’ school project about a pet rabbit goes horribly horribly wrong.
2 Birds (Rúnar Rúnarsson) Iceland
2 Birds takes place during one bright summer night and follows a group of young teenagers on a journey from innocence to the stark reality of adulthood.
First prize - £5,000; Second prize - £3,000; Third prize - £2,000
Promotion of your work on movie channel TCM across Europe, the Middle East and Africa as part of a special on-air TCM Classic Shorts season in November
Be part of one of the most prestigious and long standing short film competitions in Europe
Judging panel made up by some of the most prominent names in the film and media industry
International media coverage of the competition, now in its ninth year, held in conjunction with The Times BFI London Film Festival
The 6 finalists will be screened as part of The Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival at the awards ceremony and on film channel TCM
Past winners have gone on to win BAFTAs, make feature films and TV programmes, and screen their work at other festivals such as Cannes with the encouragement and assistance of TCM
Organised from the 15th of April to the 31st of July, the NISI MASA contest takes place simultaneously in all its member countries in Europe .
For this 7th edition, the new theme is: Escape.
The contest is open to every youngster from 18 to 28, living in one of the organising countries. Each participant must write a short-film script of 20,000 characters maximum on the assigned theme, in one of the official languages of the contest.
In January~February 2009 the three new awarded scriptwriters plus 12 of the European finalists, will be invited by NISI MASA to take part in «European Short Pitch», a scriptwriting workshop organised at the Moulin d’Andé~Céci in France, followed by pitching sessions in front of European producers.
Then, the 3 European winners will be supported by NISI MASA in the production and distribution of their films.
From the script to the screen, NISI MASA is keen on contributing to the development and circulation of innovative short films from all over Europe.
All information about the contest can be found here:
Cineuropa.org, “the best of European cinema” is organising a big game-contest.
By simply answering correctly to 10 questions about European cinema and the Cannes Film Festival, one European film enthusiast will be given the chance to cover the 61st edition of the Cannes Film Festival, from May 14-25, 2008. The winner, the special reader correspondent for Cineuropa.org, will compose a blog in English throughout the festival.
In order to take part, you must be over 18 years of age, a citizen in one of the countries participating in the European Union’s MEDIA programme and be able to write fluently in English. Answers will be accepted until April 25.
Thanks for you, since last March we’ve estabilished our position in the world of on-line cinema, and we are happy to say, that Daazo has became well-known among the young filmmakers of Europe. We’ve presented more than 60 quality short films, not saying that we showed several special programmes as well: there is the selection of Kosovo Documentaries; the archives of Budapest Squares Project and Euro-Balkan Video Letters.
We are proud to host the Oscar-winner director, Rofusz Ferenc’s short films, including the Academy Award winning animation, The Fly. These exeptional artworks have been watched by around 80 000 people, which is a great pleasure for us. Just like the achievements of many other nice films: Not So Small Talk, the comedy of Mike Wollaeger; The Kiss by Toma Waszarow - which was awarded by many festivals, or the provocative animation by Éva Magyarósi: Hanne - just to mention a few of our premieres.
And thank you for the great uploaded films - we’ve had more than 500! You are convincing us more and more that Daazo is worth to work with!
We hope you, dear Daazo-users share our thought, that we are the luckiest generation of film makers and film film lovers - we can find and watch easily the works of the upcoming talenst, besides presenting our films to the world. Maybe it’s not just a coincidence, to get three excellent shorts on the site having the word “lucky” in their titles. These films express Daazo’s willing to present many-sided, colourful works -
Let us remind you!
Lucky Bastard prooves that it’s possible to create a grotesque comedy about the end of the world; story of the last man on Earth, waiting without hope for the ending, but it’s still funny.
Lucky Man is much more serious; the stories of Puszta (the name of Hungarian steppe) has a great tradition in Hungary, in films and literature either, Lucky Man is the first classical, professional short film dealing with this topic.
Lucky Strike is a French action-comedy. Like Lucky Bastard it puts the value ‘being lucky’ into an ironical frame.
As the Hungarian based Daazo is getting to be as a well known startup project in Budapest, we were invited to present Daazo to the audience of IT professionals. The idea of the this conference was to create a platform where all the fresh and ambitious projects of Hungary can get to know each others. Basic panels covered topics like “how to get financial support” ” how to advertise” etc.
Even tough it was a so called “underground” meeting - most of the people having new ideas without major financial supporter - participating this conference was really a challenge for us, because neither Daniel nor Me are coming from the IT sector. Both of us are rather filmmakers, than computer experts, so to introduce our site in a way that is interesting in front these professionals was not an easy task.
After all it went very well, we got many feedback immediately and it seems that Daazo managed to hit the challenge again and surprise everybody how great the site is.
It’s kind of duty for us watching the Oscar Ceremony, since we’ve had an Oscar-winner short on Daazo. It’s good to know, that among the flashy scenes at Kodak Theatre are not only high-budget features getting awarded; the next generation is already there with their short films.
This year in the category of Live Action Shorts the Oscar has gone to Philippe Pollet-Villard (France) for The Mozart of Pickpockets.
Everyone - who’s seen the film - is just loving it; Anne Thompson deputy editor of Variety wrote: “Charlie Chaplin would be proud of this charming little comedy, which observes two inept Parisian pickpockets who meet their match in a deaf-mute young street urchin. Though a fair amount of the laughter is dialogue-based, the funniest bits employ good, old-fashioned silent-movie tactics (as in the scene where one thief distracts the suspicious hotel clerk, while his partner attempts to smuggle the child through the lobby in an oversize shopping bag).”
“The Mozart of Pickpockets boasts its share of surprises, but it doesn’t depend on them, putting characters first. Unassuming in its pleasures, yet universal in its appeal, Mozart gets my vote” - she added.
Peter and the Wolfwon the Oscar of Animated Shorts. British director Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman film’s is an animated version of Sergei Prokofiev’s musical tale for children, which was written and composed in 1936. Peter lives in a world where he has to confront evil and his struggle against the wolf leads to his transformation. A fragile little boy, Peter discovers his own strength and, with the help of a few friends, becomes a true hero.. Anne Thompson wrote: “If I had to predict a winner, this would be it… Templeton’s interpretation seems to favor the animals and even features a mushy new twist: after capturing the wolf, Peter lets the misunderstood beast go free, revealing the hunters as the true villains of the story.“
The good thing is that both winners (Mozart… and Peter and the Wolf) are very well made, brave atworks, but watchable, entertaining shorts at the same time; this is what we prefer on Daazo too.
And don’t forget: we already presented an Oscar-winning animated short: Ferenc Rofusz’ The Fly.
Daazo.com is the online center of European short Films. Beside of our weekly film premieres it is also a collection of short films made by you. Visit Daazo now!
20 Visons of Paris
Filmmakers from 20 countries discovered Paris.
Budapest Squares
What do squares as public areas mean to people? Short Documentaries.
Organised from the 15th of April to the 31st of July, the NISI MASA contest takes place simultaneously in all its member countries in Europe .
Cineuropa.org, “the best of European cinema” is organising a big game-contest.
