NexT Film Festival | April 3-7, 2014

Celebrating the memory of Romanian director Cristian Nemescu and sound designer Andrei Toncu, NexT Film Festival (N for Nemescu and T for Toncu) selects each year short and medium films made by young and talented movie directors and sound designers from around the world to compete for the NexT awards.

Together with international film festivals and organisations, NexT brings a series of hors concours events, as well as a variety of workshops on film-directing, sound-design, screenplay-writing, production, film critique and others. Special selections from Short Matters! (the short films nominated for the European Film Academy Awards) and Semaine de la Critique (films selected in the parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival) will also be included in the festival’s schedule.

Oscars Night, one of the festival’s most popular programs, will premiere the five films nominated for the Best Short Film (Live Action) award, including the winner, Helium, directed by Anders Walter.

At the 8th edition of NexT Film Festival, held between April 3-7, 2014, in Bucharest, two special sections will be presented: NexT Is Love (10 surprising stories and views about love) and NexT Look (15 ingenious, sensual or dark films divided into two programs: Body Image and Sparkle).

About NexT is Love: “We’ve tried to surprise, I think the only rule of the game was to avoid those films that give a feeling of déjà-vu. We have everything, from lyrical-thrilling or tumultuous stories about first love, to a very funny gag about an elderly couple for which sex is no more what it used to be. And there are maybe three short films in which the storytelling matters quite a lot, they speak more about how love is portrayed in movies rather than about relationships per se”, film curators Irina Trocan and Andrei Rus explain.

About NexT Look: “The first NexT Look program, which we informally called Body Image, is about the way the characters see themselves and the way their look influences their lives” (Irina Trocan).

“The second program, NexT Look – Sparkle, consist in films that are visually striking, be it either animations (dark, eccentric, ironical – we have the most irreverent film ever made, called The Eternal Return), or that they are made in a very personal style (here I think about the touching Goran)” (Irina Trocan).

NexT

Poster by Matei Branea

During this year’s edition, young Romanian filmmakers have, for the first time, the opportunity to participate in one of the newest and most popular contests for short film projects – The Pitch. Organized by ShortsTV, the channel dedicated to short films, in partnership with Romtelecom, The Pitch offers the chance of a 5000€ funding for the production of a short film.

In addition to The Pitch contest, NexT organizes, for the first time, NexT Short Film Market. On Sunday, the 6th of April, the ones selected for The Pitch will moreover have the chance to present their projects in front of 20 Romanian and foreign film producers, during a series of individual meeting session.

Find out more on their website, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube.