A total of 1,288 titles have been submitted for ALCINE53, which will take place from November 7 to 17. The official sections will feature numerous premieres in Spain and the Community of Madrid, as well as a world premiere. Additionally, the festival has once again been selected as an Oscar® qualifier and will also qualify for the Goya Awards.
A total of 51 short films, selected from the 1,288 entries in the National and European Competitions, will compete for a spot on the winners’ list of the 53rd edition of ALCINE, the film festival organized jointly by the Alcalá de Henares City Council and the Community of Madrid, with funding from the Ministry of Culture.
For this year’s edition, the National Short Film Competition received a total of 633 entries, from which the festival’s selection team has chosen 28. Meanwhile, the European Short Film Competition had 655 submissions, with 23 short films selected from 9 countries.
All of them will compete for prestigious prizes, including the most coveted one, the First Diamond, awarded with 5,000 euros and a trophy in both competitions. Moreover, they will also qualify for the Oscars® as ALCINE has once again been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) of the United States as one of the few Spanish festivals that, due to its excellence, qualifies for these awards.
In the National Competition, all the selected shorts will also be one step closer to the Goya Awards, as the festival is also a qualifier for the Spanish Academy Awards. This year’s edition of ALCINE will also showcase over a dozen short films competing for the Goya for Best Animated Short, Fiction, or Documentary, as they are part of the shortlist announced by the Academy last week (not only in its National Competition but also in special sections like ALUCINE or ALCINE Kids).
Another highlight is the Audience Award, whose winner will automatically be nominated for the European Short Film Audience Award (ESFAA).
During the first weekend of the festival, all competing titles will be screened in the official sections (at the Teatro Salón Cervantes and the Corral de Comedias in Alcalá de Henares), including numerous premieres in Spain and the Community of Madrid, as well as a world premiere. This year, the festival will feature new works by Gala Hernández (La mécanique des fluides, winner of three Goyas); David Pérez Sañudo (Ane); and animator Begoña Arostegi (first prize at ALCINE 2020). For those looking for familiar faces, Carolina Yuste will debut as co-director, and Laia Manzanares (Merlí, La desconocida), David Lorente (No me gusta conducir, El reino), two-time Goya nominee Nacho Sánchez (Mantícora), and the omnipresent Patricia López Arnáiz (20,000 species of bees, The sparks) will star in the fiction section.
For viewing, the festival programming team has grouped the titles into 12 thematic sessions, six for the National Competition and six for the European Competition, with titles like ‘Chapuzones’ (‘Splashes’), ‘Escenas familiares’ (‘Family Scenes’), or ‘Fly me to the moon’ for Spanish shorts, and ‘Avistamiento’ (‘Sighting’), ‘Tesoros’ (‘Treasures’), or ‘Zonas de interés’ (‘Areas of Interest’) for European films. This year, all screenings will offer more space for Q&A sessions with their creators.
For viewers who miss the weekend screenings, there will be a second chance to watch the competing shorts in the ALCINE Continuous Session. This is a new section of the festival that will be held at the Gilitos Cultural Center - Alcalá Creation Lab (LabCrea), from Monday, November 11, to Thursday, November 14.
Here are the 12 thematic programs with all the selected titles for the National and European Short Film Competitions, which can be seen at ALCINE53:
National Short Film Competition
National I: Arraigar (It’s not easy to find a place to stay)
Saturday, November 9 at 5:00 p.m. at Teatro Salón Cervantes
National II: Tumbos (Life can cause dizziness, disorientation, and occasional nausea)
Saturday, November 9 at 7:00 p.m. at Teatro Salón Cervantes
National III: Escenas familiares (Stories we tell ourselves and others)
Saturday, November 9 at 9:00 p.m. at Teatro Salón Cervantes
National IV: Chapuzones (You can’t bathe twice in the same sea)
Sunday, November 10 at 5:00 p.m. at Teatro Salón Cervantes
National V: Culito de rana (If it doesn’t heal today, maybe not tomorrow either)
Sunday, November 10 at 7:00 p.m. at Teatro Salón Cervantes
National VI: Fly me to the moon (Love inflations under the moonlight)
Sunday, November 10 at 9:00 p.m. at Teatro Salón Cervantes
European Short Film Competition
European I: Avistamiento (The human being can be the most elusive bird to observe, and its song the most devastating)
Friday, November 8 at 5:30 p.m. at Corral de Comedias
European II: Choosing a family (Decisions that can open wounds or heal scars)
Friday, November 8 at 7:30 p.m. at Corral de Comedias
European III: Tube TV (625 lines of surprising testimonies)
Friday, November 8 at 9:00 p.m. at Corral de Comedias
European IV: Treasures (By inheritance, chance, or searching the internet, found objects of exceptional human quality)
Saturday, November 9 at 5:30 p.m. at Corral de Comedias
European V: Areas of Interest (Beautiful gardened estates in remote regions. Best viewed (at night))
Sunday, November 10 at 5:30 PM at the Corral de Comedias
European IV: On the Run (You need to know when to stop)
Sunday, November 10 at 7:30 PM at the Corral de Comedias
The full ALCINE53 program, including the feature films and short films that will complement the audience award sections, will be announced soon.
