30th edition of Short Film Festival Leuven offers focus on Palestinian stories

The 30th edition of the Kortfilmfestival Leuven or Short Film Festival Leuven is kicking off on Friday evening. This anniversary edition offers extra live talks and performances. It amongst others focuses on Palestinian stories.

The festival at arts centre STUK in Leuven starts with five premieres: four world premieres and one Belgian premiere. Visitors can enjoy 'De stier' (‘The Bull’) by Victor Nauwynck, ‘Sim’ by Lynn Ryssen, ‘Un matin’ (‘One morning’) by Line Pillet, 'Raaf' (‘Raven’) by Jeroen Ceulebrouck and 'De leider komt' (‘The Leader Comes’) by Manuel Janssens and Michiel Geluykens.

This year’s edition amongst others has a focus on Palestinian stories. It offers a dedicated programme with documentaries, animation and live-action fiction, all with their own view on Palestinian identity. Ticket revenue for this programme will be donated to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

While films such as ‘Bethlehem 2001’ and ‘Layl’ (‘Night’) focus on the fear that comes with years of war and oppression, ‘A Short Film About Kids’ shows the resilience of a group of Palestinian children. ‘I Signed the Petition’ summarises the difficulties Palestinians experience overseas in one phone call and ‘Dancing Palestine’ is a love letter to the dabke, a Palestinian folk dance.

Portugal is also put in the spotlight: together with the Portuguese festival Curtas Vila do Conde, Kortfilmfestival Leuven presents two Portuguese programmes. Artist in Focus this year is Belgian director Fien Troch, who won one of her very first prizes ever at the Kortfilmfestival. Troch will be present for a discussion on 3 December.

Awards

A ‘time travel machine’ will also be set up at STUK in the coming week. In the booth, visitors can re-watch clips of the best films shown in the past at the Short Film Festival.

As every year, awards will be handed out. There are the European and the Flemish Competition, with separate prizes within the Flemish Competition for best Fiction, best Animation and best Documentary. A jury will choose two winners from all European and Flemish films: those films will end up on the longlist of the Oscars.

The Short Film Festival screens more than 200 short films in total, selected from more than 3,200 entries. The festival ends with the awards ceremony and a closing party on Saturday 7 December.

^{#FlandersNewsService | A film projector © BELGA PHOTO Brandon Bell/Getty Images/AFP}