Linea d'Ombra Festival-CortoEuropa30 Competition

Organization
Linea d'Ombra Festival is an international film and audiovisual festival, conceived and promoted by the SalernoInFestival Association Ente del Terzo Settore (ETS), supported by the Ministry of Culture, the Campania Region, and the City of Salerno, and created with the contribution of other public and/or private entities, associations, foundations and sponsors. The Festival is a member of AFIC (Association of Italian Film Festivals) and CFCC (Coordination of Film Festivals of the Campania Region).

Date
The 30th edition takes place in Salerno from November 8 to 15, 2025.

Project
Linea d'Ombra Festival is an event that aims to publicize and promote the best international film and audiovisual productions, particularly European ones, to relate the different forms of youth creativity and promote awareness of them among the public, to develop projects that have an effective educational and productive spin-off, to encourage the creation of collective works by young artists from different experiences, and finally to enhance the cultural potential of the Campania Region territory on a national and international level.
Over the years the festival has been attended by international and national stars like Kenneth Branagh, Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach, Peter Cattaneo, the Dardenne Brothers, Paolo Sorrentino, Nanni Moretti, Marco Tullio Giordana and many more.

The Linea d'Ombra Festival prize for the best short film in the CortoEuropa_30 section is €2,000. A jury of experts will award it. At least three experienced representatives from the world of cinema and audiovisuals will make up the jury. The artistic direction of the festival will select them. The prize money is gross of the withholding taxes provided for by Italian law. The Popular Jury (registered and present in the auditorium) will award the Linea d'Ombra Festival Prize Plaque for the best short film in the CortoEuropa_30 section. The Artistic Direction, having consulted the Jury of Experts, may award special mentions to films that demonstrate particular technical and creative qualities.

The Jury of Experts may, at its discretion, split the prize money in the event of an ex aequo situation. The winner(s) will be paid the prize money exclusively, as stated in the prize-giving report signed by the members of the Jury of Experts. Third parties, including legal entities such as production and distribution companies, are not eligible to receive prize money, even if they can be traced to the winners.

Competitive section: CortoEuropa_30

The competition is open to short films (fiction, non fiction and/or animation) in digital format, with a maximum length of 20 minutes, 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐝𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐨-𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐝 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒/𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓. The number of works admitted to the competition section will be determined by the artistic direction and may vary according to programming needs and creative coherence. The pre-selection of the works will be supervised by a panel of experts and film scholars and coordinated by the Festival's Artistic Director, who will be responsible for the final selection of the works admitted to the competition.

How to submit
a. Films may be sent:
- on the online platform: www.filmfreeway.com
- on direct invitation by the Festival

b. There is a fee of 3€ to be paid at the same time as entering the platform.

c. The deadline for submission of a work in pre selection is 1 September 2025 at 23:59 UTC+1;

d. The submission of a work to the competition implies full acceptance of these regulations. In the event of any dispute, the Italian text will prevail. For anything not covered by these regulations, the Festival organisation reserves the final decision.

e. Acceptance of these regulations authorises Linea d'Ombra Festival to use the films selected for the competition in the CortoEuropa_30 category. The organisation of the Festival will request the authorisation to present the work in competition in any other activities, directly organised and/or sponsored by the Festival, even outside the dates of the festival.

Competition Admission
The artistic direction will notify the official entry of the films in the competition by 10 September 2025. On receipt of this notification, the following materials must be sent as a matter of absolute priority, either by e-mail or by file transfer service, to intmanager@lineadombrafestival.it:
- clean projection files in .mp4 or mov, full HD o 4K without subtitles;
- .srt files of subtitles in Italian, if available, or in English;
- synopsis (.doc, .rtf or .pdf format);
- bio-filmography of the director (.doc, .rtf or .pdf format);
- photos of the film and the director;
- film data sheet (.doc, .rtf or .pdf format).

Overall Rating

Quality

Value

Communication

Hospitality

Networking

Gargantua Film Distribution

Thank you so much for screening the films from our distribution! Hoping to be back next year.

January 2025

Helpful

Response from festival:

I hope so, too!
naz çaybaşı

Thank you so much for this amazing experience!

April 2024

Helpful
Thomas Bauer

I learned two things at the Linea d'Ombra Festival-CortoEuropa: 1) Don't drink cappuccino after hours! 2) there are still festivals that are not on the dark side of money and organize film festivals to make quick money with the hard work by us filmmakers. I was very happy that my low budget production Cannibal Corp. was selected for the festival and in competition with a lot of great short films from Europe. This is a festival that really supports art and creativity, with a focus on the youth and new talents. They do not just screen films, but also offer a lot of panels with discussion around filmmaking. There is nothing to complain. Communication, hospitality ... all fine. A real professional event, very nice people and Salerno is a beautiful city, too. I hope I can be back next year and join the festival for the whole week.

November 2023

Helpful

Response from festival:

Great to have had your fantastic short Cannibal Corp. and yourself in our festival. Thank you for your nice words. We do our best to make the festival an unforgettable experience for all. Looking forward to seeing you back as a guest in Salerno.
Andrej Kolencik

Unfortunately very bad and unprofessional communication. After the first email where festival stated that they will invite selected filmmakers i replied that im interested to come, since our film was selected. But after that, nothing.. no email from guest service. When i wrote them some days before the festival, they answered me this: "Dear Andrej, thank you for reaching out. You indeed expressed your intention to visit the festival, but in the beginning all directors do. I didn't hear anything from you, so I understood you didn't wanted to attend anymore." So they assumed. No apology saying that they forget or made mistake. And this came directly from the festival director :(

October 2022

Helpful

Response from festival:

We make a lot of effort to organise a festival like ours; a beautiful low budget festival with a lot of volonteers.
Antonio Michele Stea

Awesome festival!
The festival is extremely organized and the staff was very nice.
Thanks for this experience

November 2021

Helpful

Response from festival:

Thank you for participating!