Shortcat 2022
Fotografia portada: ©Marc Cuscó
Fotografia portada: Marc Cuscó
We are extremely proud to present the new Shortcat 2022, a careful selection of touching stories that portray the reality around us, offering genuine topics, visual diversity, quality and international potential. It is a diverse selection ranging from fiction to documentaries and hybrid proposals where we find some of the contemporary world concerns: mental health, domestic violence or sexual diversity, expressed through universal topics such as love and death. We would like to specially thank this year’s jury for their rigorous work in the selection process: Andrea Herrera (director and producer at Amor y Lujo), Carla Vulpiani (curator and programmer for the Torino Short Film Market and Venice Film Festival), Jose Cabrera (programmer for Las Palmas, Seminci Festival and Tenerife Shorts), Miguel Español (distributor at Miyu Distribution) and Zoé Rossion (head of distribution at Salaud Morisset and programmer for the Milano Film Festival). Ready to enjoy the best Catalan shorts?
Shortcat 2022 | 5
El que encara ens balla Documentary | 26’10” | Catalan
Mire and I have been friends and have loved each other since we were 5 years old. Just before she moved to Glasgow, she confessed to me that she suffered from depression. She had horrible visions that would not let her sleep. And she also
confessed that she had not allowed herself to dance for a long time. Through this film correspondence, together we explore the boundaries of love and mutual support.
INTERNATIONAL TITLE
PRODUCER
FILM EDITING
SOUND
What Still Dances
Marga Almirall
Alejandra Molina
DIRECTED BY
SCREENPLAY
Marga Almirall and Júlia Gaitano
Marga Almirall
MUSIC
PRODUCED BY
Marga Almirall and Mireia Grau
Marga Almirall and Mireia Grau
Looky Produccions
DOP
SOUND DESIGN
SALES AGENT
Clara Camprubí
Alejandra Molina
Josué Coloma
MAIN CAST
Marvin & Wayne
Shortcat 2022 | 7
©Marc Cuscó
“What Still Dances is a love story that questions the very limits of love. The seed for the project was planted by my own correspondence with a friend who suffers from depression. She shared with me how she felt, and confessed that she would not allow herself to feel pleasure, and therefore could not dance. I asked myself how I could support her, looking for ways to convince her that creation and art can be transformative and restore her desire to dance. Then one day she proposed we play a “game”: she would send me videos of herself dancing. I was to be the eyes, the audience for her dance. This proposal is what ultimately led me to turn our correspondence into a movie”.
Marga Almirall
Marga holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication and a postgraduate degree in Audiovisual Editing. She studied at the Feminist Laboratory of Documentary Creation at La Bonne, as well as pursuing studies in Film Theory and Criticism. She currently works at Drac Màgic, a cooperative where she co-manages film education projects. She directed
the video essay Querida (vida) diaria, and co-directed La carcajada de la medusa and De un cuerpo a esta parte with Marta Nieto. She directed the short film Elena Universo, which has been selected at numerous national and international festivals and received a special mention from the jury at the Alcances Documentary Film Festival.
MARGA ALMIRALL
Shortcat 2022 | 9
Harta Drama | 24’12” | Spanish
Carmela turns twelve and already has plans to celebrate with her friends. But, as tends to happen in her life, that same day she is supposed to visit her father at a Family Meeting Point, a result of the gender violence he subjected her mother
to years ago. Carmela tries to avoid going at all costs, until finally, manipulated by her father, she has no choice but to comply with a judicial system that will not listen to her.
INTERNATIONAL TITLE
PRODUCER
DOP
ART DIRECTOR
Fed-Up
Sergio Grobas
Thais Catalá
Elena Ponsoda
DIRECTED BY
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
FILM EDITING
MAIN CAST
Júlia de Paz Solvas
Oriol Milán
PRODUCED BY
Sergio Grobas, Ibai Abad, Jan Matheu and Núria Dunjó
Mayo Films
SCREENPLAY
Oriol Donat
SALES AGENT
Júlia de Paz Solvas and Núria Dunjó López
SOUND
Anna Caponnetto, Julián Villagrán, Mar del Hoyo, Carmela Poch and Cristina Plazas
Marvin & Wayne
SOUND DESIGN
Júlia Benach
Shortcat 2022 | 11
©Marc Cuscó
“Every day we encounter new cases of violence committed by men against women, and I find myself in a state of passivity that consolidates the structural violence that, as a woman, affects me directly. I asked myself: Where are the children of these women in all this? As I began looking for an answer, I came across the case of a woman who filed a complaint against her partner only to have her son forced to comply with a visitation schedule to see his father, despite the boy having clearly stated his refusal to do so. This case is one of many in which children’s ties with their abusive fathers, and therefore their fathers’ ties with their mothers, are perpetuated. Does a father’s right over the children prevail over their children’s and wives right to a life free of violence?”.
Júlia de Paz Solvas
She began her film studies at ESCAC, specialising in film directing. Her short film Ama (Shortcat 2019) has received several awards, including the Videolab Award for Best Short Film at the Mecal Festival. In 2020 she made her first feature film, also titled Ama, which won a Silver Biznaga for Best Leading Actress and the Feroz Puerta Oscura
Award for Best Film at the Malaga Film Festival. In 2021, Variety named Júlia de Paz one of the ten Spanish talents to watch. She has currently been nominated for a Goya, along with Núria Dunjó, for Best Adapted Screenplay for her debut feature film Ama. Both are co-writing their next feature film based on the homonymous short film Harta.
JÚLIA DE PAZ SOLVAS
Shortcat 2022 | 13
Podul de piatrâ / Pont de pedra Experimental Documentary | 18’11” | Romanian, Catalan, Spanish
A streetlamp marking the limit of a town in Aragon’s Eastern Strip lights up at nightfall. Angelica, a woman of Romanian origin living in the town, witnesses the birth of a foal at the stables where she works. The little creature’s struggle
to free itself from the maternal placenta, its condition of ghostly and borderline existence, touch her so deeply that she is unable to shake off the image.
INTERNATIONAL TITLE
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
FILM EDITING
ART DIRECTOR
Podul de piatrâ / Pont de pedra
Jaime Puertas
Sara Clemente
MUSIC
MAIN CAST
DIRECTED BY
Carlota Coloma, with the support of Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola
Sarah Romero
Artur-Pol Camprubí
SCREENPLAY
SOUND DESIGN
PRODUCED BY
Artur-Pol Camprubí and Victor Radoselovics
Sarah Romero
Angelica Maxim, Vasile Maxim, Josep Maria Bellostes, Antonio Font and Jordi Font
DOP
Sarah Romero
15L Films
SOUND
Artur-Pol Camprubí Shortcat 2022 | 15
©Carlota Coloma
“The basis for the film was the relationship that I’ve been building for the last 2 years with Angelica (50). Originally from Romania, she has been living in Aragon’s Eastern Strip for more than 20 years. She spoke to me about a feeling of interference, of not feeling present, neither in the Strip nor in Romania. It was as if the fact of living between two places, without a full sense of the present, enabled her to inhabit an intermediate, subjective space all her own. The film speaks of limits and territory. We are not seeking conclusions but rather to be left doubting, not to categorise but to suggest, to play between what we know and what we don’t, between what we understand and what we infer”.
Artur-Pol Camprubí
He graduated from ESCAC in 2015 with a degree in Cinematography. He is currently taking a postgraduate course in Cinematographic Creation at Elías Querejeta Eskola in Donostia-San Sebastián. He is a director of photography for fictional pieces, documentaries and advertising, working in different formats and mediums. He has worked
on films such as The Miracle of Almería, by Moon Blaisse (Jury Award of the Union de la Critique de Cinéma de Belgique, 2015), produced by Cassette for Timescapes and Baldr Films; Hafreiat, by Àlex Sardà, produced by 15L Films and Aljazeera Documentary; and Tolyatti Adrift, by Laura Sisteró, produced by Boogaloo Films and Les Film d’Ici.
ARTUR-POL CAMPRUBÍ
Shortcat 2022 | 17
Ponto Final Documentary | 22’57” | Spanish
This film is an excuse, a cure. The director returns to his parents’ house and asks them to play a game where they become movie stars. This
acting game will serve as a pretext to talk about the cancer that both his mother and father overcame and the fear of loss.
DOP
SOUND
Alberto González Casal
Marcus Rovisco
DIRECTED BY
Campos, Mário Patrocinio, Alfredo Lobo Sánchez and Fran Cóndor Demarquet
FILM EDITING
ART DIRECTOR
Miguel López Beraza
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Pedro Collantes (AMAE)
PRODUCED BY
Mireia Graell Vivancos
MUSIC
Adriana Fernandes (Tigre de Fogo)
Ringo Media, Makers, Matiné and Bro Cinema
SCREENPLAY
Laura Casaponsa
MAIN CAST
Miguel López Beraza and Mireia Graell Vivancos
SOUND DESIGN
Elvira Beraza and Jesús López
INTERNATIONAL TITLE
Ponto Final
PRODUCERS
Lorenzo Mastrocinque
Mireia Graell Vivancos, Luis Shortcat 2022 | 19
©Marc Cuscó
“Ponto Final is an excuse, a quest, in which the process of creating the film remedied the lack of communication in my family, allowing us to reconcile our feelings. My parents’ diseases changed the way I saw them. For the first time, temporality entered our lives. On our faces appeared bewilderment, a permeable and contagious fragility that seeped into everything and changed us. In Ponto Final, my parents play Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve, a game of mirrors where we inhabit cinema, existing on its time. The film speaks of the fear of loss with daring, humour and affection, through the cinematic universe, with its false sense of immortality and timelessness”.
Miguel López Beraza
Miguel combines a career in architecture with filmmaking. He was awarded a scholarship to take part in the DOCNomads Master’s Degree in Documentary Filmmaking and another one for the advanced screenwriting workshop at EICTV (Cuba). His debut, the short film Walls, received the Goya Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2015, among others accolades.
His second piece, With All Our Cameras, premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival and won the New Horizons Short Film Competition. Ponto Final is his most personal short film. Currently, Miguel works as a tutor at the screenwriting workshop Less is More and as a script consultant for the Locarno Film Festival while he develops the script of his first feature-length film.
MIGUEL LÓPEZ BERAZA
Shortcat 2022 | 21
Por la pista vacía Drama | 27’10” | Spanish
Ana records a voice message for an old friend. Doubt enters. What should be remembered? What should be forgotten? What words to use to heal old wounds?
Sometimes the boundaries between admiration, friendship, love, resentment and hatred blur in us. We can say we hate and love at the same time and still be telling the truth.
INTERNATIONAL TITLE
PRODUCERS
DOP
SOUND
On the Empty Dance Floor
Alba Forn and Hug Cirici
Hug Cirici
Cora Delgado
DIRECTED BY
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
FILM EDITING
ART DIRECTOR
Pablo García Canga
Alba Forn
Antonio Trullén Funcia
Oriol Hernando
PRODUCED BY
SCREENPLAY
SOUND DESIGN
MAIN CAST
Vivir Para Ver Films and Cirici & La Creativa
Pablo García Canga
Cora Delgado
Bruna Cusí
Shortcat 2022 | 23
©Marc Cuscó
“In some films, such as Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, there are contradictory versions of the same story. Each of these versions is given by a different character and we think that in almost all those versions lies predominate while only one is the truth. Here, we play with an element that has become common in our daily lives: the voice messages on the phone and the possibility of deleting them. The contradiction appears in a single character, Ana. She is one and she is multiple. By telling her story, she reinterprets it, and as she tells it, she transforms her feelings. She talks and talks and what she is saying becomes true, but a truth that can be erased by new words, by another message”.
Pablo García Canga
Director and screenwriter of the short films For Julia (2004), Pissing Territories (2011), Portrait in Two Times (2014), De l’amitié (2018) and La nuit d’avant (2019), he has also been screenwriter for films by Santos Díaz Antón and Gonzalo García Pelayo. He is currently shooting his debut feature-length film,
Las Tierras del Cielo, and preparing the short film Tu trembleras pour moi. He authored the book Ozu, multitudes (Athenaica Ediciones, 2020) and collaborated on the books George Cukor On/Off Hollywood, The Order of the Labyrinth and Pintar el sol: Víctor Erice by Paulino Viota.
PABLO GARCÍA CANGA
Shortcat 2022 | 25
Tormenta de verano Drama | 20’ | Spanish
Núria has suffered a psychotic breakdown. When she is discharged from the hospital, her son Oriol moves into her house in the countryside. Over the course of some summer days,
Oriol assumes the task of looking after her while facing his mother’s depression and the fear of a possible relapse.
INTERNATIONAL TITLE
PRODUCERS
DOP
SOUND
Summer Storm
Christos Voudouris
Nora Haddad
DIRECTED BY
Miriam Porté and Belén Gayán
FILM EDITING
ART DIRECTOR
Laura García Alonso
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Estel Roman
Oian Arteta
PRODUCED BY
Gerard Marginedas and Toni Moreno
SOUND DESIGN
MAIN CAST
Laia Casanovas
Lola Dueñas and Àlex Monner
Distinto Films and Agosto Content
SCREENPLAY
Laura García Alonso
Shortcat 2022 | 27
©Marc Cuscó
“A close relative has been dealing with mental illness for a few years. This short film came about from exploring my own feelings and fears about the disease. How does one assume the caregiver role? Where is the line between trust and intrusion? How do we learn to let go? I find it hard to understand what my family member is going through. He is like the weather, ever changing at the mercy of something we cannot grasp, terrifying yet fascinating. Summer Storm is the story of a mother and son that live through a severe illness. Two people who cannot seem to find each other yet fight side by side. It is a take on maternal and filial love”.
Laura García Alonso
Laura graduated from ESCAC and started working as an assistant director for productions by Pedro Almodóvar and Ridley Scott. Her first short film, Alex, was selected at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and was nominated for a Gaudí Award (Catalan Film Academy). Her
second short film, Tormenta de verano (Summer Storm), looks at mental illness within the family environment. She is currently directing advertising campaigns and is a professor at ESCAC while she develops her first feature-length film as a director.
LAURA GARCÍA ALONSO
Shortcat 2022 | 29
Valienta, mujer Drama | 13’21” | Spanish
Sara, a fifty-year-old transgender woman, realises she cannot just be herself when she is alone and hidden at home. She needs the world to see her as she really is and she gets ready to go out for the first time. As she makes her way through
the streets of the city, facing the prejudices of a society that will not let her be who she is, she fights her fears and insecurities and lets herself exist in a world that both overwhelms her and makes her braver than ever.
INTERNATIONAL TITLE
PRODUCER
FILM EDITING
SOUND
More Than Brave
Laia Marín
Àngela Revert
Roger Solé
DIRECTED BY
SCREENPLAY
MUSIC
ART DIRECTOR
Marc Vilalta
Marc Vilalta
Roger Solé
Naroa Sánchez
PRODUCED BY
DOP
SOUND DESIGN
MAIN CAST
ESCAC Films
Marc García
Roger Solé
Sara Ramos and Carles Pulido
Shortcat 2022 | 31
©Marc Cuscó
“I am very concerned about the fact that some people do not feel that they identify with their “physical self”, and moreover that society exacts a very high price if they decide to break free and be who they really are. The research I carried out to work with this topic from a cinematographic perspective has made it clear to me just how fascinating the transgender world is, full of awesome untold stories that need to be brought out into the light. We must fight against prejudices, injustice and silence, in my case to give voice to an undermined group with which society does not empathise. By giving them a voice, people might come to understand them, and with understanding come empathy”.
Marc Vilalta
He graduated with a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the University of Barcelona in 2019, where he directed Mia, an interactive short film about mistreatment. He then went on to get a degree in Film Directing from ESCAC and wrote
and directed More Than Brave, a short film about the first time that a fiftyyear-old transgender woman goes out into the city. While studying, he also collaborated on 90 anys d’aplec a Calella (2017) and the documentary Octubre (2018) by Ernest Vila.
MARC VILALTA
Shortcat 2022 | 33
Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies (ICEC) | www.catalanfilms.cat | shortcat@gencat.cat