The 3rd Seoul Metro International Extreme-Short Film Festival announces line-up
With the catchphrase of “90 seconds of imagination, have fun on the metro,” the 3rd Seoul Metro International Extreme-Short Film Festival has confirmed 26 films as finalists that will compete for USD $1,000 in prize money. The festival received a total of 783 submissions from 45 countries, an increase of 178 from last year’s 605 submissions. This meant 30 to 1 odds that any film submitted would make the final cut. Twenty films are to compete in the International Competition and the Domestic Competition will be comprised of six films. Among the finalists, there are nine Korean films, with the remaining 17 films coming from 12 different countries including Germany, France, Argentina, Italy and New Zealand. All continents were equally represented across the submissions. SOHN Kwang-su, the festival’s programmer, said, “this year saw more fiction work compared to last year, which saw many animations. Even though the majority of the submissions were short, most under 90 seconds, they were full of excellent images and brilliant ideas”. SOHN went on to say the selection was made on the basis of theme, style and suitability for viewing on the subway. He also noted that it was paramount for the films to be understandable without sound and that some submissions that didn’t meet these requirements simply couldn't be accepted into the final round. The selection will be shown in Seoul from September 6-18. They will also be screened on Berlin subways from September 12-18. Overall, the films will be shown on 4,321 monitors on both of the city’s metro systems.