Kinofilm™ Festival Announces the 16th Edition and First Online Debut

Press Release

Kinofilm Manchester International Short Film Festival is thrilled to announce that the Kino festival will return to celebrate its 25th Anniversary with its first online premiere Edition taking place from 10th - 16th May, promising an exciting global short film celebration!

For the 16th edition of the ever-popular celebration of independent short film in the city of

Manchester, the new initiative splits into two showcases (National & International), with the Spring festival edition, Part One featuring over 200 International diverse short films, presented in 28 programmes digitally. Our British section, Part Two will be presented in a live Autumn edition (19th – 24th October), screening in-person across multiple venues in Manchester and showcasing the very best of local, North West and UK wide filmmaking talent.

Festival Director John Wojowski said: “The festival couldn’t go ahead as planned in 2020 for our

16th edition due to the Covid lockdowns, however, we now can’t wait for everyone to see the amazing films we have lined up. With the first part of the festival being online this year, it’s a chance for everyone to experience the festival, no matter where they’re from”.

“It offers the chance for filmmakers to have their short film seen by people across the globe. Although we would like to be together in a live festival, it’s a fantastic opportunity to create a global community from this shared audience and online experience !”

Due to COVID-19, Kinofilm has been subject to three postponements which, as an independent and unfunded event, resulted in severe losses. The festival’s small advertising budget has been sapped as posters, booklets, flyers, and more were wasted and later put to recycling in the Spring of 2020.

It’s now time to put our plans for the 16th Edition of the short film festival into action as part of our 25th anniversary year - we simply cannot wait any longer! With 200 short films selected from over 1000 entries submitted from 70 countries worldwide, we will be blasting a feast of brilliant new independent cinema from talented new young filmmakers and established directors, directly into homes virtually for everyone to enjoy and to join in our celebration of the art of short film.

There will also be workshops for aspiring filmmakers, engaging Q&A’s and more; it’s a varied and

entertaining programme for everyone and anyone across the country and internationally, featuring many European and International film Premieres and award-winning short films!

We are excited to announce our official programme selection will include Euro Cinema, Iranian

Cinema, International Panorama, BAME film, Women in Film, Made Up North, International

Students, Documentary, Animation from across the world and a special strand of themed programmes such as Romantic Tales, Comedic Tales, Sci-fi and Fantasy, Crime and Horror Tales.

This year’s online edition will kick-off with an International and UK programme called “Stars in

Shorts”. In this Kino opening programme special, there’ll be many famous faces and something for

everyone in our exceptional Stars In Shorts programme curated from films in various programmes

throughout the festival. So for this opening taster (and there’s much more to come), have some fun and Spot the Stars in this year’s Kino Fest!

Feature filmmaker and director for BBC TV Jason Wingard said: “Kino has been instrumental in

showcasing Manchester filmmaking talent for twenty-five years. The vanguard of film culture on the city and a massive influence on filmmakers throughout the region. If there is one festival that deserves support, this is it!”

Kinofilm Festival will also feature a virtual awards ceremony to celebrate the filmmakers in this

year’s festival with a mammoth 15 Awards for the International section, selected by a panel of twelve UK and International jury members. This year’s jurors, invited in recognition of their

accomplishments and commitment to the industry, will participate in the hard job of choosing award winners.

KinoFilm have screened thousands of short films from every corner of the world, some of which have starred Whoopi Goldberg (The Colour Purple, Ghost), Maxine Peake (Silk, Black Mirror), and

Gemma Chan (Humans, Crazy Rich Asians).

Previous directors whose films have featured at the festival include Lynne Ramsey (You Were Never Really Here, We Need to Talk About Kevin), Andrea Arnold (American Honey, Fish Tank) and Neil Marshall (The Descent, Hellboy).

Kino is Back after these extraordinary times, this Spring on http://bingewave.com.

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