Euroflicks

This month, to be precise from June 28 for two weeks, Ġnien il-Gardjola in Valletta will play host to the fourth edition of the Kinemastik Film Festival. This non-competitive event will showcase 13 short films from seven European countries. Most of these shorts are around 10 minutes in duration - and some are even shorter. All of them have been entered in some of the most prestigious festivals of short films in the EU and beyond and most have figured among the prizewinners.

This year, the programme will spread over a two-week period, beginning on June 28 with the screening of 13 films that make up part of the Prix UIP - an initiative by United International Pictures and the European Film Academy in co-operation with 14 festivals throughout Europe.

Among the 13 shorts to be shown will be Belgian director Renaud Callebaut's five minute movie Kwiz. This is simply a short about two middle-aged women armed with mobile phones, in a hospital waiting-room who throw themselves into a merciless quiz. It is very funny and has an outstanding pay-off line.

The highly original UK animation specialist Joanna Quinn has her latest short film Dreams and Desires - Family Ties showing. Another British short, the 14-minute long Rotten Apples, by the Bulgarian-born Raliza Petrova, tells of a father and son who move from the city to the countryside in a bid to forget the wife and mother they have lost. Before long the father finds a new girlfriend prompting precocious observations from the son.

The other shorts on offer during the festival are: Le Diner, by Cecile Vernant, France; Adjustment, by Ian Mackinnon, UK; Salvador by Abdelatif Hwidar, Spain; Tokyo Jim by Jamie Rafn, UK; Alumbramiento by Eduardo Chapero-Jackson, Spain; Plot Point by Nicolas Provost, Belgium; Soft by Simon Ellis, UK; Dad by Daniel Mulloy, UK; Amin by Davi Dusa, France/Germany; and finally Tommy by Ole Giaever, Norway.