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FESTIVAL 2004
On January 1st, 2004 Frank Moens stepped in as the new festival programming director of the Short Film Festival. His maiden festival proved to be quite a task: to celebrate its 10thanniversary the festival had planned a few extra projects. During the festival an elaborate ‘Leuven Kort Reloaded’ section was scheduled in which the highlights the past 10 years - over 70 films - were screened. Second, the festival released a DVD “10 Years Leuven Kort”, a unique compilation of the 21 best Flemish short films from a decade of festival. The DVD was promoted and distributed in collaboration with the popular quality paper De Morgen and turned out to be a tremendous success. In 2 months time over 6000 DVD’s were sold. This immense appreciation for shorts films was reflected in audience attendance and festival buzz: the 70 screenings of 215 national and internationals shorts drew over 5200 visitors, again an increase in attendance. Various screenings were sold out, opening and closure nights were the place to be, the industry events about short film production was well-attended and for the first time also schools had discovered their way to the festival. This said, the 2004 edition was as they say a ‘grand cru’ in short film quality: the Audience Award winning animated short Flatlife, later on won the Golden Palm at Cannes and Sean Ellis’ Cashback, later on Oscar nominee and turned into feature film, won one of its first prizes (Jury Award) at the International Short Film Festival Leuven.
FACTS
Dates: November 27th –December 4th 2004
Visitors: 5 200
National Competition:
Live action Audience Award: Carlo (Michaël R. Roskam), Jury Award: Cologne (Kaat Beels), Award for Best Newcomer: My Bonnie (Nele Meirhaeghe) Animated Shorts Audience Award: Flatlife (Jonas Geirnaert) Music Videos Audience Award: Housewife (Daan) Short Documentaries Jury Award: Made In Italy (Fabio Wuytack)
European Competition (only live action):
Audience Award: Cashback (UK, Sean Ellis), Jury Award: De Nouveau Lundi (FR, Alix De Maistre)
Jury Members: Felix Van Groeningen (BE, director), Ruben Nollet (BE, film journalist), Ilse Somers (BE, director), Mark Cosgrove (UK, Brief Encounters, Bristol International Short Film Festival), Christoffer Olofsson (SE, Uppsala International Short Film Festival)
FESTIVAL 2005
As the European Competition had steadily become one of the most popular sections of the festival, the organization decided to expand the number of selected films. The number of submitted films grew rapidly so the programming of the 7 compilations proved to be no problem at all. As also most of the non-competitive sections of the festival consisted of international films, the festival dropped the nickname ‘Leuven Kort’ and was now permanently denominated as ‘International Short Film Festival Leuven’. This was also reflected in the foundation of the festival dvd label Selected Shorts. In 2005 two DVD’s were released: the best Flemish Shorts of 2005 (all subtitled in English) and European Award Winners, a selection of the best European films selected at the festival over the past years. The festival also procured the DVD screenings rights for these films, in order to facilitate short film screenings by third parties. The 2005 festival edition counted about 100 screenings, all together over 275 films were screened. The co-operation with the newspaper De Morgen was intensified substantially: the festival’s brochure got distributed as an inlay to the paper; this way the folder reached over 75.000 readers. Close promotional cooperation like this with the media combined with a general blooming of the short film industry and interest, resulted in an audience attendance close to 7000 visitors.
FACTS
Dates: December 3rd-10th 2005
Visitors: 6 925
National Competition:
Live action Audience Award: The One Thing To Do (Michaël R. Roskam), Jury Award: Love’s Lost & Happiness (Lieven Van Droogenbroeck), Award for Best Newcomer: Forever (Jonas Govaerts) Animated Shorts Audience Award: On A Lead (Sandy Claes) Music Videos Audience Award: Unrock (Lars Damoiseaux) Short Documentaries Jury Award: Cinema Central (Elias Grootaers)
European Competition (only live action):
Audience Award: Home Game (NO, Martin Lund), Jury Award: A Picture of Me (UK, Tom Shkolnik)
Jury Members: Sien Eggers (BE, actress), Christophe Dirickx (UK, BE, scenarist), Kaat Beels (BE, director), Stephan Winkler (DE, short film distributor W-Filme)
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FESTIVAL 2006
Starting 2005 the festival had been working the year round to promote, distribute and screen short films also outside the festival week. During the year the festival released two DVD’s: a selection of Short Films for Kids and the Best Flemish Films of 2005. In 2006 it finally received the recognition, also financially, it needed to deploy this full range of activities. The intensification of the festival’s goal to promote short films resulted every year in a growing interest in the festival, from the general audiences as well as from the industry professionals, national and international. Moreover, all over the country short film initiatives were at hand: small festivals, short films handed out with periodicals as a promotional stunt, other short film dvd labels were founded, elaborate press coverage etc. The festival supported this growing interest in shorts by adding small editorial articles likes interviews with filmmakers to its festival brochure, that was distributed via De Morgen again, now reaching over 100 000 readers. Two new media partners stepped in for a more close collaboration: HUMO, a popular weekly periodical, would now award the HUMO Prize for Best Comedy Short (from a pre-selection of 5 films) and StuBru, the national youth radio, streamed the selected music videos competition on their website, where viewers could give their feedback on the works. It was however the festival jury that now awarded the winner of Best Music Video. In regards to editorial choice, the number of international work rose to 65% of the festival’s programming, from which comedy shorts and animated shorts programs were the most successful. Again the festival’s selection contained some high quality and later on multiple award winning shorts such as Audience Award winner Six Shooter, that won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short and the Belgian Tanghi Argentini, that won the Audience Award at Clermont-Ferrand in 2007.
FACTS
Visitors: 8 430
National competition:
Live action Audience Award: Zondvloed (Peter Ghesquière), Jury Award: Anémone (Nathalie Teirlinck), Award for Best Newcomer: Explode RU486 (Jesse De Greeff), Animated Shorts Audience Award: Administrators (Roman Klochkov) Best Music Video Jury Award: How Does it Feel (Lars Damoiseaux), HUMO Award: Fernsehturm (Alexander Van Waes)
European Competition (only live action):
Audience Award: Six Shooter (UK, Martin McDonagh), Jury Award: Godkänd (SE, Lisa Langseth)
Jury Members: Frank Focketyn (BE, actor), Steven De Foer (BE, film journalist), Geoffrey Enthoven (BE, director), Koen Mortier (BE, director), Jaak Boon (BE, scenarist), Christophe Lambrecht (BE, radio producer), Danny Elsen (BE, D.O.P.), Ivana Vuksic (KR, Zagreb Film Festival), Peter Igancio (US, buyer Atom Films), Ray Cokes (UK, FR, producer France 4)
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