Cineuropa Shorts Top 5 European Shorts of 2015 - Introduction

December 21st is the shortest day of the year and also International Short Film Day, a celebration of all things short film. So it seems right that Cineuropa Shorts uses this day to launch its annual Cineuropa Shorts Top 5 European Shorts of the Year.

Once again Cineuropa Shorts has gathered a selection of movers and shakers within the world of short film to reveal to us their favourite short films of 2015. Festivals (including Sundance, Venice, London and Oberhausen) have sent their responses alongside a selection of filmmakers, distributors and journalists.

There was no hard and fast criteria for people to make their selection. With the fluid nature of short film distribution and the short film festival circuit being much less dependent on premieres than their feature film counterpart, we only requested that people try and select films that came to prominence during 2015. Of course, people’s definition of ‘risen to prominence’ can very and the selection of films spans the last couple years – also an indication of how some films keep active on the festival circuit.

Given that we are Cineuropa Shorts, we also asked the participants to select their top five films from Europe. However, we also let participants select one film from outside of Europe in recognition of the diversity of short film from across the world.

Despite its name, this list is not meant to be a definitive ‘Best of 2015’. Instead it is meant to be more of snapshot of the state of the European short film in 2015 and reflect the huge diversity that the short film scene has – there were more than 100 different shorts selected by the participants. That said, there were a few films that proved exceedingly popular amongst all the participants. These included the vital and satirical Symbolic Threats, the shocking and moving Over and the Swedish homage to 80s action cinema Kung Fury. With this wide range of choices, it’s perhaps another testament to the diversity that is out there.

Cineuropa Shorts would like to thank all the participants for their time and look forward to a 2016 full of equally brilliant short films.

You can read Cineuropa Shorts Top 5 European Shorts 2015 Part 1: The Festivals HERE and Cineuropa Shorts Top 5 European Shorts 2015 Part 2: Filmmakers and Industry HERE