Vienna Shorts
27.05—01.06.2025
Do you adore strolling down the streets of a historical, beautiful, and cozy city? And what about dancing until late for six days in a row (you know, technically speaking, it is called “networking”)? If you fancy all that: welcome to Vienna Shorts!
Founded in 2003 with the goal of “presenting independent films and promoting exceptional talent” (their words), the festival has managed to establish itself as one of the prime yearly events for people in the European short film industry. Taking place between the end of May and the first days of June, festival goers can benefit from the late spring hot climate of the city, which anyway always comes second to the warm welcome offered by the festival’s team (partly helmed by Talking Shorts co-founder Daniel Ebner). Maybe that is one of the reasons why 10,000 film lovers and 600 accredited professionals show up every year.
Definitely one of the most politically outspoken events in the short film festival circuit, Vienna Shorts can be seen as a hub where serious issues are tackled and presented through films, giving rise to meaningful discussions afterwards. This approach can be resumed in the catchphrase “We Need To Disagree”, the successful festival motto of a previous edition.
As an EFA-, BAFTA- & Oscar-qualifying event—also promoting professional Industry days and a month-long artist residency in the beautiful Austrian capital—Vienna Shorts is an opportunity emerging directors look to for a leap in their careers.
Text by Enrico Vannucci
Reading List
Jyoti Mistry on We Come in Peace, They Said
City of Poets by Sara Rajaei
Oyu by Atsushi Hirai
Nastia Korkia on Dreams About Putin
Nikola Ilić on Exit Through the Cuckoo’s Nest
Pavel Mozhar on Unwanted Kinship
Alessandro Novelli on De Imperio
Zima by Tomek Popakul, Kasumi Ozeki
Yann Gonzalez on Hideous
Aunque es de noche by Guillermo García López
Mast-del by Maryam Tafakory
Digital Textures As An Existential Compass
Using Home Videos in Documentary Filmmaking
Anna Vasof on Saving Some Random Insignificant Stories
How Different Sources of Capital Direct Our Personal Agency
Palestinian Short Films Towards Liberation
Flores del otro Patio by Jorge Cadena
Fractured Identities of Post-War Former-Yugoslavia in Short Films
All Inclusive by Corina Schwingruber Ilić
Leandro Goddinho and Paulo Menezes on Paradise Europe
Sam Manacsa on Cross My Heart And Hope To Die
27 by Flóra Anna Buda
A Kind of Testament by Stephen Vuillemin
Reading List
Square the Circle by Hanna Hovitie
waking up in silence by Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhluktenko
Exploring Blackness
Remember How I Used to Ride a White Horse by Ivana Bošnjak Volda, Thomas Johnson Volda
The Veiled City by Natalie Cubides-Brady
The Maestrat on Film by Fermín Sales
Until I Lie Still by Yana Eresina
Land der Berge by Olga Kosanović
Reading List
backflip by Nikita Diakur
On The Japanese Artist’s Singular Work
Will My Parents Come to See Me by Mo Harawe
It’s Raining Frogs Outside by Maria Estela Paiso
Janaina Wagner On Curupira and the Machine of the Destiny
Reading List
Vienna Shorts 2020
One Hundred Steps by Bárbara Wagner, Benjamin de Burca
A Lack of Clarity by Stefan Kruse Jørgensen
The Criminals by Serhat Karaaslan
Tracing Utopia by Catarina de Sousa, Nick Tyson
Naya – Der Wald hat tausend Augen by Sebastian Mulder
