Tomorrow, Wednesday, The Shortest Day. will be celebrated. In Spain, it is organized by the Coordinadora del Cortometraje. It was established in 2011 as a project by l’Agence du court-métrage in France; the fundamental idea is to promote short films by organizing free screenings during a single day. It has been celebrated in Spain for 4 years, since 2012.
Why December 21? The winter solstice takes place on this day, which corresponds to the date when the sun reaches its maximum northern declination; it is the day with the fewest hours of daylight in the year.
The Shortest Day is organized by other European agencies and distributors grouped in the Short Circuit association; this association meets annually in Clermont-Ferrand, where the results for each member country are analyzed.
The agencies that are part of the association are:
- Wallonie Bruxelles Images (Belgium)
- Croatian Audiovisual Centre (Croatia)
- L’Agence du court métrage (France)
- Interfilm Berlin (Germany)
- KurzFilmAgentur Hamburg e.V. (Germany)
- Irish Film Board (Ireland)
- Green Ray Film Agency (Ireland)
- Centro Nazionale del Cortometraggio (Italy)
- Lithuanian Shorts (Lithuania)
- Eye Film Institute (Netherlands)
- Norwegian Film Institute (Norway)
- Agencia – Portuguese Short Film Agency (Portugal)
- Slovenian Film Centre (Slovenia)
- Freak Independent Film Agency (Spain)
- Kimuak (Spain)
- Madrid en corto (Spain)
- Swedish Film Institute (Sweden)
In total, it is celebrated in 12 member countries, except for Lithuania.
In France, several changes have been made to the organization and concept of The Shortest Day. On one hand, a specific organization has been created; it is no longer a working group within L’Agence du court métrage as before, but an independent team. The name of the new association is Faites des courts. Fête des Films, founded in September 2015 to work throughout the entire year.
The concept has also changed; it is no longer “the shortest day” but “the short film festival.” La Fête du Court Métrage has gone from being a single day to being celebrated over several days, from December 15 to 18.
This event featured 6,391 screenings throughout France, with the support of the CNC and short film programming from the Agency itself.
The rest of the countries maintain the traditional scheme, holding all screenings on December 21, with a similar operation. Spain and Portugal, along with France, have created their own website. In the other countries, they have only created subpages within the websites of their own agencies.
This is the promotional video created by the Coordinadora del Cortometraje to promote the event in our country:
This is the spot from the Agencia – Portuguese Short Film Agency:
Regarding the number of confirmed screenings, Spain ranks second, only after France, with more than 300; the third country is Germany with 265.
In all countries, they receive support from national film institutes; in Spain, the organization of The Shortest Day receives a grant from the Ministry of Culture through the Grants for cultural action and promotion. It also has the support of Red.es and the SGAE Foundation.
In the Spanish case, El dia més curt must also be mentioned, which has been celebrated in Catalonia since 2013 and has its own website, although it does not appear in the Short Circuit directory. El dia més curt is organized by Catalunya Film Festivals (the coordinator of Catalan festivals) and the distributor Marvin&Wayne, with the support of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Provincial Council, and the Barcelona City Council, as well as the CCCB – Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona.
One of the most interesting projects of Short Circuit, linked to the celebration of The Shortest Day, is the Children’s program. This is a program of children’s short films selected by an association committee based on proposals from each member. This selection is designed to be viewed by children under 6 years old and screened without issues in all member countries.
The first program took place in 2015 and featured the Spanish short film Rascal’s Street. In this year’s selection, Spain is present again with Atención al cliente.
This is the complete selection for this year’s program:
- Koyaa – Lajf je cist odbit (Koyaa – The Extraordinary, Slovenia, 2011)
- La cage (The Cage, France, 2016)
- Voće (Fruit, Croatia, 2016)
- Atención al cliente (Spain, 2007)
- Mushroom monster (Norway, 2013)
- Merlot (Italy, 2016)
- Jack (Netherlands, 2014)
- The button (Lithuania, 2012)
- Tänk om… (What if, Sweden, 2014)
In total, there are 9 animated short films, with a duration of 56 min. Copies and materials are available on an FTP. This year’s coordination was handled by the Italian Centro Nazionale del Cortometraggio.
If you are thinking of attending any of the screenings, at this link you can consult the full schedule published on the website created by the Coordinadora del Cortometraje.
Tomorrow, everyone go watch short films!