17th BUDAPEST SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
31 August - 5 September 2021 Puskin Cinema / Art + Cinema / Italian Cultural Institute / Cervantes Institute
Fiction, animation and experimental short films from around the world / Partner festivals / Workshops / Concerts
Student jury, International jury: 3 main prizes / 7 category prizes / 2 special prizes for the best Hungarian works!
The 17th BuSho International Short Film Festival will start in the Verdi Hall of the Italian Cultural Institute on August 31, at 7 pm with the grand opening ceremony, which will feature the Első Pesti Rackák under the direction of György Ferenczi and of course the screening of last year's award-winning works. Fortunately, after last year's surprise border closure, many foreign artists have once again indicated their intention to participate, so the festival world will once again become international in the first week of September at the Budapest venues. In addition to the 4 locations in the capital, you can still see the entire competition program in Sopron and Szeged as well. The next day after the opening, the competition program will start in the Amarcord hall of the Puskin Cinema, which will be able to be watched in repeated screenings at the Art + Cinema in the evenings. The Italian Cultural Institute will have accompanying programs every night (Italian, Portuguese and German short film screenings) and a Visegrád thematic day on Saturday before the evening awards ceremony, but after last year's debut there will be a Festinet screening at the Cervantes Institute too, with 2 Spanish films, with a personal introduction by the directors.
By the April deadline, despite a period of recent epidemic, nearly a thousand works shorter than 30 minutes had arrived from 63 countries in the fiction, animation and experimental categories eligible for the festival. For the first time in the history of BuSho, Hungarian artists submitted the most entries, 93 in number, and in keeping with the traditions of the festival, all received Hungarian works will be presented in the promising Hungarian panorama section. This year, the pre-selection team consisting of Annaida Orosz, Ágnes Böjte, Levente Galambos, László Rimóczi was expanded with 2 new members, and two former BuSho Student Juries joined us: Tímea Tánczos, who was delegated to us from the Metropolitan University in 2016, and Máté Holdosi, who was with us at the festival in 2017. The selection process caused a major headache for the updated team, who eventually selected 71 short films for the usual 15-hour competition program, including 4 experimental 16 animation and 51 fiction films per category. In 2021 Anna Tőkés (MOME), Fanni Várkonyi (METU), Bálint Antal (SZFE) and Kristóf Sólyom (ELTE) were invited to join the Student Jury in the delegation of 4 high education institutions.
Eva Steegmayer festival coordinator accepted our invitation to the international jury from FABW (Film Akademie Baden Württemberg), another Lady, the New York-based music director DJ Mahogany, our Hungarian jury member this time Dávid Géczy, film director, screenwriter, and Wolfgang Leis, the international jury coordinator. In the evenings, the authors will be able to discuss with them at the public jury consultations that are the highlights of the day, to which, of course, we also invited all the Hungarian filmmakers in competition. So they will decide on the 3 main and 7 category prizes to be awarded at the festival, as well as the special prize of HUF 500,000 twice, which will be awarded to the best Hungarian animation and fiction film!
This year’s competition program will once again feature works that have previously won international awards, such as 14-minute The Devil’s Harmony, directed by Britain’s Dylan Holmes Williams, which won a special jury award at the 2020 Sundance Festival. Borbála Nagy's Land of Glory, made at the Berlin Film and Television Academy, was awarded the German Short Film Prize in 2020. The exam film Agapé, starring Gryllus Dorka, was invited in 2020 to the selection of the Cinéfondation at the 73rd Cannes Film Festival, which features the best of film universities and was made by Mark Beleznai, a student at the Metropolitan University. Dániel Márton, the director of A Few Good Kids and the editor of Branka (film by Ákos K. Kovács) will take part in the festival, where he has previously starred in his film The Bad Actor. Flora Chilton will also be featured in 2 films at this year's festival, in addition to her competition film Crossroads, her animation I Still Remember will also appear in the panorama. In the animation section we can find a lot of delicacies, including the French Marion Lacourt Sheep, Wolf and the Cup of Tea, which was performed at the Locarno festival, among others, but following the trends of recent years, FAMU of Prague also delegated several animated films into the competition, and this time even fiction films like The Glory of Terrible Eliz. The experimental film program also offers something special, such as the Austrian Alexander Fischer: Anatomie eines Weltverständnisses, in which Albert Meisl, who previously won two BuSho awards, also appears, but this time as an actor. Another experimental work composed with notable picturesque paintings is the Dutch film Sil van der Woerd Mirage, which depicts a man's inner fight. Of course, light entertainment movies couldn’t be left out of the program either. In an excellent Serbian short film, we can meet Hungarian actresses in Feral, when 3 women go hunting, and then they get involved in special adventures. A fantastic Canadian comedy pops up in Block 8 called Mr James is Dead, which, according to the creators, was shot and cut in 8 days.
Finally, we would like to thank our supporters for the 17th event, the National Film Institute, the International Visegrad Fund, the National Cultural Fund, the Hungarian Academy of Arts, the Creative Europe Office, the Italian Cultural Institute, the Austrian Cultural Forum, the Goethe Institute, the Portuguese Institute of Camoes, the Cervantes Institute and the Spanish Embassy. The organizers are waiting for all the interested audience, so the opening will take place on Tuesday 31 August at 19:00, the award ceremony on the evening of September 4 at the same place in the same time, all further details: www.busho.hu.
Including performing artists at the Italian Cultural Institute, 300 people can be in the Verdi Hall and 70 in the Fellini Hall at the same time. Those entering the Institute can measure their body temperature, it is recommended to use a hand sanitizer and everyone should have a mask in their pocket, we hope it will not be needed, up-to-date information can be found here: https://koronavirus.gov.hu/