Short Film Breaks

Please read our Rules & Guidelines!
All films must have hard-coded English subtitles.

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Festival Description

Short Film Breaks is the only film festival taking place within public, non-profit and for-profit organizations.

For our 6th edition, we are waiting for your submissions of short films, which will compete in the following categories:

- Best International Short Film:
One of the two main categories, we're accepting short films, of any genre, under 30 minutes, from all around the world, except Romania.

- Best Romanian Short Film:
Main category. We're accepting short films of any genre, under 30 minutes, produced in Romania or all around the world but having Romanian as the single (or main) dialogue language.

- Best i-Say Short Film Breaks (online):
We're accepting short films of any genre, under 10 minutes, from all around the world. We will be uploading them ONLINE, on the i-Say Facebook page (www.facebook.com/iSayonline), to our audience of 2 MILLION members and 215k Facebook followers.

- Best Animation Film:
We're accepting animation films, under 20 minutes, from all around the world.

- Best Documentary Film:
We're accepting documentary films, under 20 minutes, from all around the world.

- Best Experimental Film:
We're accepting experimental films, under 20 minutes, from all around the world.

- Best Music Video:
We're accepting music videos, under 20 minutes, from all around the world.

New for this edition, we're also adding the following categories:

- Best Feature Film
We're accepting feature films, of any genre and length, from all around the world.

- Best Series Episode
We're accepting TV and Web series episodes, under 30 minutes, from all around the world.

- Best Human Rights Short Film (minority, LGBT, woman filmmaker)
We're accepting short films of any genre, under 20 minutes, created all around the world, with a theme or story related to human rights, environment & ecology, activism, citizenship and community mobilization, local development, the rights of minorities, migration, global justice, etc.

- Best Short Film Made by Children
We're accepting short films of any genre, under 20 minutes, created all around the world, by children under 18 y.o.

- Best 1 Minute Film
We're accepting short films of any genre, having the length of under or exactly 1 minute.

Each year we discover new gems, so once again we're looking forward to watching your films!
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Festival History

We started in 2013, with screenings over a three months period for the 1000 Ipsos employees in Bucharest and Brasov. Our first edition also had special events and Q&A with guests from the Romanian filmmaking industry like Tudor Giurgiu, Adrian Sitaru or Tom Wilson, among others.

On our second edition we partnered with NexT IFF (www.nextfilmfestival.ro), the most important short film festival in Romania. Again, we had weekly screenings for three months and special events with guest like Florin Piersic Jr., Vivi Dragan Vasile, Ioana Flora, Dana Bunescu and Gabi Suciu.

During our third edition we continued our partnership with NexT IFF and added a new one with Alter-Native (www.madisz.ro), the most important Hungarian language film festival in Romania. That meant that again, for three months in a row, our employees watched short films during their breaks.

In 2016, we moved to the next level and added a competitive component to the festival, besides our non-competitive partnerships with Next IFF and Alter-Native, while starting a new collaboration, with Onion Films from Katmandú (http://onionfilms.com.np).
From the 1985 films submitted, we selected 7 for the Best Romanian Short Film category and 26 films for the Best International Short Film category.

In 2017 we added an online festival, i-Say Short Film Breaks, to our live screenings. The i-Say website (http://i-say.co/iSaySFBsite) and the i-Say Facebook page (http://i-say.co/iSaySFBplaylist) were the only places where the i-Say panel members watched the SFB films, online.

We also continued our love affair with FilmFreeway, opening our doors to a new range of films and filmmakers. From the total number of 2403 films received across all platforms, we accepted:
- Best International Short Film: 30 films
- Best Romanian Short Film: 10 films
- Best i-Say Short Film Breaks (online): 12 films
- Best Animation Film: 13 films
- Best Documentary Film: 4 films
- Best Experimental Film: 9 films
- Best Music Video: 8 music videos
- Best Children's Day Movie: 32 films
Unfortunately, because we didn't find enough films to love, we decided to drop the following categories: Best Halloween Movie, Best Valentine's Day Movie and Best Christmas Movie.

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SFB#5 updates:

UPDATE #12 - July 16th:

Participating in the BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM category are...
DOT directed by Tali Barde
LOS ANGELES 1991 directed by ZACARÍAS & MACGREGOR
LIMBO directed by Konstantina Kotzamani
GOOD LUCK MARC directed by Ronen Eldar
911-PIZZA directed by ELEFTERIOS ZACHAROPOULOS
HELP! I'M TRAPPED IN A MOVIE directed by Riley Madincea
I SAW IT directed by HAE SEONG JEONG
MOUSSE -30 directed by John Hellberg
NEVER BETTER directed by LUCIE GUEST
WHALE VALLEY directed by Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson
DAD IN MUM directed by Fabrice Bracq
FOMO SAPIENS directed by Viktor Hertz
I'LL QUIT TOMORROW! directed by JEAN-PIERRE MICHAËL
HIBERNATION directed by ALEXIOS KOUKIAS-PANTELIS
CLEARING SNOW directed by HYOJIN YOON
JAIL QUARTERS directed by PASCAL MARC
STUCK directed by MATHIJS GEIJSKES
RENEWABLE directed by JON GARAÑO and Jose Mari Goenaga Balerdi
NOTRUF directed by MARTINA REIST and ACHIM GANSNER
TIME 2 SPLIT directed by FABRICE BRACQ
TWO DOLLARS directed by Emmanuel Tenenbaum
KAPKAPPI directed by Keyur Dekate
THE EDGE directed by ALEXANDRA AVERYANOVA
wHole directed by ROBERT BANNING and VERENA KLINGER
MY GRANDFATHER WAS A CHERRY TREE directed by Olga Poliektova and Tatiana Poliektova
THE BOX directed by MERVE CIRISOGLU COTUR
SLACKER directed by MAX LOWE
WEDDED OR BACHELOR? directed by CRISTINA PIERNAS and VICTORIA RUIZ
MY FATHER SAYS THE STUPIDEST THINGS directed by SHAHRIAR SHANDIZ
GEORGE directed by DAVID COUDYSER

UPDATE #11 - July 7th:

The films selected for the BEST ANIMATION FILM category are...
THE LAST WYVERN
FEARS
FULL COLOR
CHATARRA
ICKY
DARREL
SHIT
ABSORBED
CORP
THE WAY
ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE
(OTTO)
COUPLETS FOR AN EVERLASTING EVE

UPDATE #10 - July 4th:

Here's our selection for the 🎶 BEST MUSIC VIDEO 🎶 category:
ALL I NEED IS YOU
AT THE SHRINK'S OFFICE
COMA - THE SEA
GREAT HEADLESS BLANK
IO
NOVEMBER UNDER ASHES
PARADOX
TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS

UPDATE #9 - June 29th:

Participating in the ☢️ BEST EXPERIMENTAL SHORT FILM ☢️ category are...
BEWARE OF TRAINS
BLACK SQUARE
DOUBLE-BLIND NO.1
EXTREMES
NOITULOS EDICIUS
RATIO
RIEN
RUSTLES IN THE SILENCE
SOPHIE'S STORY

UPDATE #8 - June 28th:

The Short Film Breaks elephant just established his newest home at Zitec. Thank you very much for your warm helcome and the amazing new friends we've made!
We've started with the winners of SFB#4:
Ártún
Half Shaved
NADA S.A.
L'autostoppeur
The Story of 90 Coins

UPDATE #7 - June 26th:

The films participating in the 🌇 BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM 🌇 category are...
NO JUNGLE! (directed by Carmen Menéndez)
MARTITA (directed by María José Pastore)
TAGARELA - O FILME (directed by Fran Mattoso and Filipe Itagiba)
HAPPY HAPPY BABY (directed by Jan Soldat)

UPDATE #6 - June 16th:

The films selected for the BEST ROMANIAN SHORT FILM category are...
A NIGHT IN TOKORIKI
DREAMS ON SALE
BERNARD OR THE LIMITS OF CONSTRUCTION
BLACK FRIDAY
THE PROJECTIONIST
IN THE SIDECAR
ROBBERY
MY NAME IS COSTIN
4:15 PM THE END OF THE WORLD
NOT MY PROBLEM

UPDATE #5 - June 19th:

It's time to make that great announcement you've all been waiting for: the WINNER of the i-Say Short Film Breaks Facebook Event is...
🎆 The Story of 90 Coins!!! 🎆
Also congratulations to our other finalist: Le Constructeur de Malheur. The Story of 90 Coins gathered 9312 of your votes, while Le Constructeur de Malheur managed to get 7258 votes.
If you haven't seen these wonderful short movies, you can still do it here: https://www.facebook.com/iSayonline/videos/1413446578707720/

UPDATE #4 - June 14th:

We are really, really close to releasing the list of selected films, but before we get to that announcement we have to give you a bad news. Because we didn't find enough films to love, we decided to drop the following categories:
Best Valentine's Day Movie
Best Halloween Movie
Best Christmas Movie
All films sent to us for only those categories can be considered NOT SELECTED.

UPDATE #3 - May 9th:

The training sessions are done and all films were sent to our judges. Starting this year, each film will be watched by 3 members of our team! Good luck everyone!

UPDATE #2 - May 6th:

Our submissions window is not officially closed! Thank you very much for trusting us with your beloved projects! We'll make sure to treat them well. Can't wait to watch them all!

UPDATE #1 - February 18th:

We just launched i-Say Short Film Breaks, the online film festival taking place on the i-Say Facebook page and website. Join and share the event with your friends: http://i-say.co/iSaySFB_FBevent