Short Film News (SFN)- The Biennale has announced the line up for the international short film competition Corto Cortissimo of the Venice Film Festival.

26 films selected, 18 in competition, include directorial debut of Italian actor Adriano Giannini.

The section will open with Man Push Cart and Goodbye Solo director Ramin Bahrani’s eco-themed short Plastic Bag, out of competition.

The world premiere of Plastic Bag (starring a Plastic Bag, whose voice will be an interesting discovery, and a surprise, for the Venetian public…), a visionaryshort film created by Ramin Bahrani, the Iranian-American director who returns after his success on the Lido in 2008 with Goodbye Solo (and a member of this year’s jury for the Venice Award for a Debut Film), will lead a multicoloured parade of 26 small-great films selected (among 1,600) with a preference for the ones steeped in the emotion of discovery – for those who made the selection no less than for those who made the films.

The section will be judged by US filmmaker Stuart Gordon, Russian actress and critic and festival director Sitora Alieva and American scholar Steve Ricci.

Corto Cortissimo Line Up:
Ramin Bahrani- The Plastic Bag – out of competition opening film
Clemens Klopfenstein and Lucas Tiberio Klopfenstein – The It.Aliens – out of competition closing film

Competition:
Salome Aleksi – Happiness – Georgia

Tomek Baginski – The Kinematograph – Poland

Gianclaudio Cappai – I Know There’s A Man – Italy

Jan Cvitkovic – This Is Earth My Brother – Slovenia-Italy

Sara Eliassen – Still Birds – Norway

Pedro Freire – Bliss – Brazil

Adriano Giannini – The Game – Italy

Murad Ibragimbekov – Objekt No 1- Russia

Roland Jobson – GirlLikeMe- Great Britain

Etienne Kallos – Firstborn – South Africa / USA

Kwang-bok Kim – Mom’s Vacation – Korea

David Lea – Storage – Great Britain

Simone Massi – Nuvole Mani- France

Meni Philip – Sinner – Israel

Martin Stitt – Family Jewels – USA/ Great Britain

Shijie Tan – For Two – Singapore

Dean Yamada – Bicycle – Japan / USA

Edmund Yeo – Kingyo – Japan

Corto Cortissimo – Events
Leonardo Carrano / Alessandra Pierattini – Recordare – Italy

Giacomo Cimini – The City In The Sky –Great Britain/Italy

Alberto Dell’Ara- La Seconda Famiglia- Italy

Riccardo Pugliese – Radio – USA/Italy

Paolo Sassanelli – War – Italy

Annarita Zambrano – A La Lune Montante – France

To seal the alliance between Corto Cortissimo and Circuito Off – Venice International Short Film Festival, this year CortoCortissimo will move for one evening to the “Isola dei Corti”, the “Island of Shorts” on San Servolo. On the night of September 5th - in agreement with  Circuito Off - an extraordinary preview will be held at San Servolo: the screening of Earth, the medium-length film by Singapore director and visual artist Tzu Nyen Ho, a hypnotic and symbolic post-Caravaggio tableau vivant about the fate of the Earth, with a live musical accompaniment (by the protagonists of Singapore garage music) that is not to be missed.