Weird Market Reveals The 38 Short Films From 18 Countries That Will Compete In Wfest 2022
Skwigly
Weird Market continues taking steps towards its 14th edition, the most important professional market in Spain in animation, video games and new media announces the 38 works that will compete in WFest (its international short film festival). Likewise, it reveals the 12 companies that will be part of the “recruitment” day, an important event for the industry where international studios seek professional profiles for their teams. The event, which is being held for the first time in Valencia between September 27th and October 2nd, opens its accreditations in a process that last year filled its quota in a few weeks.
The next edition of the WFest will be made up of a total of 38 short films from 18 countries around the world. Divided into two contests: national and international; the productions can be seen free of charge (after going through the box office) at the Filmoteca de Valencia (Rialto Building) on Tuesday, September 27th, Thursday, October 29th, and Sunday, October 2nd.
The Spanish competition will contain 11 works, one of them, La Prima Cosa by Omar Al Abdul Razzak and Shira UKrainitz in co-production with France. This documentary presented in Annecy shows the friendship between the only Israeli Orthodox Christian Arab clown and a Syrian girl who survived the war.
One of the hallmarks of this edition is the mix of emerging talent with established names such as Pedro Rivero. The winner of two Goya Awards (Birdboy and Birdboy: The Forgotten Children) is also the author of the script for The Platform, a feature film that has become a worldwide viral phenomenon. Rivero will arrive in Valencia together with Kevin Iglesias to compete with The Days That (Never) Were. The production is endorsed by festivals such as San Sebastián, Sitges or Zinebi and has been selected internationally in the United States, Colombia, Croatia, Mexico, Turkey or Australia.
Among the works that will compete to be in the list of winners the last two Movistar+ Short Film Project Awards by Weird Market: He Ran Towards His Comrade by Genis Rigol and Roped by Carmen Córdoba. Two stories with a strong social charge, but from very different perspectives; while the first presents an elderly businessman in search of popularity that shows ethical and moral contradictions, the second presents the bonds between mother and daughter in a personal and intimate way. Córdoba thus takes over from Roberto (her first film), winner of more than 160 national and international awards, including selection at 11 festivals that qualify for the Oscars.
The current reality and conflicts will be very present in the themes, something clearly appreciable in The Heights by Alejandro Salgado, a multi-award-winning author who here sets his sights on the women porters on both sides of the Ceuta and Melilla borders.
For its part, Muerte Murciélago by Carlos Saiz confronts the viewer with a child in an isolated town with intoxicated waters and who will soon begin to imagine his future far from there.
Obtaining its second consecutive selection, Choche Hurtado brings Kokuruga #2, a short film that reached the Clermont Ferrand short films market and where its bitter humor, the loss of innocence and the passage from childhood to preadolescence stand out.
Suspense and the “noir” style appear in Naive Mischief in Oak Paso by Manson and Marc Torres, Good Night Mr. Ted by Nicolás Solé and Phonorama by Alex Rey. Torres, animator and comic book artist, uses a reduced color palette for this work that transports the atmosphere of series such as American Crime Story or Twin Peaks. Solé uses black and white to immerse a teddy bear in a classic police-style narrative. Finally, Rey, passionate for cinema, illustration and animation, seeks to create a story with his own stamp based on Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic film Rear Window.
Local talent that will also be represented by Nicolás Petelski and his short film Hot Singles in Your Area. Petelski participated with his debut film A Table Game in the 2018 edition.
27 WORKS IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
The international competition will feature 27 short films from a total of 17 cinematographies from all over the planet. A wide amalgam of techniques ranging from stop motion to 3D Digital, through drawing on paper. The country with the greatest representation will be France, which will have a total of six works, three of them in co-production: Cuddle by Margot Reumont (co-production with Belgium), Anxious Body by Yoriko Mizushiri (co-production with Japan) and Yugo by Carlos Gómez Salamanca (co-production with Colombia). The rest are Absence by Marc Héricher, Horizon of Success by Théophile Gibaud and Wet by Marianne Bergeonneau, Mélina Mandon, Lauriane Montpert, Chloé Peyrebrune and Elvira Taussac.
After the Gallic country, the United Kingdom appears with five shorts: Night of the Living Dread by Ida Melum, Spring Roll Dream by Mai Vu, Your Mountain Is Waiting by Hannah Jacobs, Curiosa by Tessa Moult-Milewska and Black Slide by Uri Lotan (co-production with Israel).
In the third rung, tied with three works each, Germany and Switzerland. The first features Benztown by Gottfried Mentor, Louis I. King of the Sheep by Markus Wulf, and Hysteresis by Robert Seidel, while on the Swiss side are The Record by Jonathan Laskar, Sweet Nothing by Joana Fischer and Marie Kenov, and Sauna by Anna Lena Spring and Lara Perren.
The selection is completed by two short films from the Netherlands: Pig by Jorn Leeuwerink and Sprite Fright by Matthew Luhn; two works from the United States: Bottle Cap by Marie Hyon and Marco Spier, and Meal on the Plate by Chenglin Xie (in co-production with China), and the rest of the works that will fight for a place in the final list of winners are Elevator Alone by Anastasia Papadopoulou (Greece), Passenger by Juan Pablo Zaramella (Argentina), Amok by Balázs Turai (Hungary), Iizuna Fair by Sumito Sakakibara (Japan), Bestia by Hugo Covarrubias (Chile) and Dog-Apartment by Priit Tender (Estonia).
12 COMPANIES LOOKING FOR PROFESSIONALS FOR THEIR STUDIOS
One of the highlights in the agenda of each edition of the Weird Market is the recruitment day, where leading companies in the sector will seek to recruit new talent. A total of 12 international studios will have their talent scouts for this search that brings together multiple candidates every year.
Thursday the 29th in the morning will be the moment in which 3 Doubles Producciones, Ánima Kitchent, El Ranchito, Hampa Studio, Mago Production, Lusco Fusco Animation, The Glow Animation Studio, Wise Blue Studios, B Water Animation Studios, The SPA Studios, Aupa Studio and TV ON Producciones will interview all kinds of profiles to add them to their work teams.
ACCREDITATIONS OPEN
The accreditation process has been opened through the Weird Market website itself and until September 22nd. A date awaited by professionals and fans of the market that last year was completed in a few weeks. From the organization it is requested not to delay the request to be able to process all requests.
As a novelty this year, all professional accreditations will have access to the meetings app to be able to meet the rest of the professional attendees and encourage networking.
The 14th edition of Weird Market has the main sponsorship of the Valencia City Council, the Valencia Provincial Council and the Generalitat Valenciana; the sponsorship of ICAA, HP, Tenerife Film Commission and Huawei; and the support of AVEPA, À Punt, Barreira Arte + Diseño, SimpleCloud, Welaw, Tangram Solutions, CREA SGR and La Liga de la Animación Iberoamericana (The Ibero-American Animation League).