Drama Short Film Festival celebrates its 20th international edition

Celebrating its 20th year as an international event, Drama’s Short Film Festival (15-20 September) will populate its 37th edition’s programme with over 200 titles from around the globe, 38 of which will showcase what has been ceremoniously dubbed as the most vivid side of Greek film production.

“Short films are cinematic works of immediate depiction,” said festival director Antonis Papadopoulos in a statement released by the festival, referring to the nature of shorts as films that are made in very little time and loaded with great amounts of the reality that surrounds them.

“Drama’s screen is thus turned into a mirror of our society, at times extremely realistic, and others less so,” Papadopoulos continued, presenting a Greek programme that has been created from over 150 submissions and revolves around the societal plights currently tormenting the country. 

The festival’s international programme includes shorts by Hollywood director James McTeigue (Caserta Palace Dream), French Oscar nominee Jeane-Claude Rozec (The House of Dust) and Irish scriptwriter-turned-director Mark O’Rowe, while the festival’s spotlight will this year be focused on Poland: 18 of the country’s greatest national and international short-film festival hits will be screened in Drama. 

The 14 shorts vying for the European Film Academy Awards will also be screened during the festival, while the Drama Pitching Lab (which will be accepting projects looking for funding and/or co-production partnerships until 5 September) will hold its Pitching Forum during the event, on 19 September.