Brevity is a crack open on to mystery

The official selection is out:

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 2024

48 films from 26 countries, selected from the hundreds of films received from the five continents.

NEXT GEN 2024

20 short films selected from 15 countries among all the short films submitted by cinema, animation and media arts students from across the globe (there is even a director of only 18).

All the films are under 3minutes (and 59 seconds), without any categories or limits, in a strict celebration of the fluidity of cinema graphic genre: cinema of reality, fiction and auto fiction, comedies, animations, experimental, science-fiction mockumentary, video poetry, home movies and this year even a film made with artificial intelligence.

Discover the official selection:

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

The international jury will choose the best five short films and award the winner a prize of € 3,000.

NEXT GEN

The international jury will award a technical prize useful for the student’s training, for the best short film - DJI Osmo Mobile 6 Vlog combo

MAX3MIN JURY 2024

[ All the films will be screened in original language with English subtitles. ]

Awards Ceremony: Saturday 5 October @ Anteo Palazzo del Cinema h 7:30 pm

4/6 OCTOBER DAY BY DAY

Critical notes on the programme of the fourth MAX3MIN

by Vincenzo Rossini  - member of the section team of MAX3MIN

Against the narcolepsy of feeds, against the superficiality of content, here is the super-short cinema of  MAX3MIN: where brevity is the crack in which the image details and depth is sought, where the cinema is critical direction towards the future of the imagination – against the annihilation of platforms and the suffocating binary nature of the social debate. In favour of complexity, of inextricable levels of interpretation, of visions of the world which do not necessarily have to be black or white. Following the magic power of the super-short expression; so short as to eliminate the superfluous, to reduce everything to the essential.

A critical idea for MAX3MIN

The more we get used to forms of increasingly fast audio-visual stimulation, as quick as a blink of the eye, the more those who tell us stories in the short forms pursue the power of a paradox: using a short time to tell a great story.

Narcoleptic feeds and compulsive scrolling require immediate  images of pure surface which do not require interpretation. Thus the hyper-short cinema of  MAX3MIN launches a challenge: can we use this brevity to generate vertigos of meaning?

For the authors of  MAX3MIN, the cinema, thanks to the ingenious ductility that its language has developed for over a century, is still able to ruminate on a remodel the other forms of expression. The cinema can take a handful of seconds, the same as a reel, and dilate it and distort it until we can put into it everything that social narration, because of its genetic code, cannot bear: the mystery, suspension and alteration of reality,  the dream-like journey, the invisible tension and irony (the real one).

Where large productions adapt times and structures to the new weights imposed by TV series, it is in the plankton of young authors and beginners that we have to hunt for ideas.

Maybe crazy, possibly imperfect, rough and more than ever in need of being (re)refined. Yet, they are alive, vibrant, hungry to tell their stories and other stories. They want to derail from the compulsory route of communication year 2024 to follow forms and times that restore the  complexity of the present, the anguish for the future and the love for a humanity that is not compliant.

Conscious that there is always less time and therefore in that little time that the of interpretations will be played out on multiple levels. Defying the surface of their playing field: a coat 6 to 0, for those who will have the openness to watch this unusual match.

The fourth MAX3MIN continues and evolves its research into short culture through 48 films in International Competition from 26 countries, selected from the hundreds of films received from the five continents. All the films are under 3minutes (and 59 seconds), without any categories or limits, in a strict celebration of the fluidity of cinema graphic genre: cinema of reality, fiction and  auto fiction, comedies, animations, experimental, science-fiction mockumentary, video poetry, home movies and this year even a film made with artificial intelligence.

Alongside the competitive heart, the two other international competitions: the NEXT GEN competition, now consolidated, dedicated to the youngest (there is even a director of only 18) this year with 20 short films selected from 15 countries; the new UNfasten your seat belt & Enjoy your time, a new competitive section thanks to the Special Partnership with SEA Milan Airports, with 10 films from 8 countries that make time fly, to trick the waiting time in the airport.

There are not only 3-minute short films; in this year’s programme you will find the short Polish films in the section Carte Blanche Krakow Film Festival, screenings, talks and Augmented Reality in the section Imagine the Unimaginable, virtual reality and immersive experiences  in the programme of Synesthetic Nostalgia.

It is a programme that goes beyond the cinema; if the screenings are concentrated in the Liberty hall of the Teatro Fontana (with a detour outside the neighbourhood to the Anteo for the awards ceremony), the hybrid spaces of  Stecca3 will also host the workshops for children and the two parties of the Festival scheduled for Saturday and Sunday evenings.