Details of the Short Film Symposium announced on the Cork Film Festival Website

From the 6th until 8th of October 2005, the Cork Film Festival in association with Cork 2005, will host a Short Film Symposium which will bring together short film specialists, curators, programmers, film makers and film critics from all over the world to Cork.

The Cork Film Festival has, since its inception, been a champion of the short film. Though a varied festival, with feature and documentary programmes, the short film is at the heart of its work. The festival has long recognized that despite being neglected as an art form, that the short form is challenging, rewarding and innovative.

The Short Film Symposium is intended as an intervention which will attempt to re-evaluate the short films position as a specific art form within the broader context of the cinema history. The important significance of this unique event is reflected by the calibre of speakers attending the Symposium. The key note address will be given by world-renowned Jonathan Rosenbaum, one of the most influential film writers in the English language and critic with the Chicago Reader in the United States.

Commenting on the art of Short Film, Rosenbaum said

"The importance of the short film is in some ways equivalent to the importance of the long film. In both cases, we're talking about films that evade the relatively arbitrary industrial standard imposed by the so-called feature film. The wide-ranging art of cinema naturally expands beyond such a standard, and short films are among the most precious casualties of that bias."

Other major contributors to the Symposium include:

• Richard Raskin, Author of The Art of The Short Fiction Film and University Lecturer at the University of Aarhus.
• John Smith, Award-winning short film-maker and teacher.
• Eileen Elsey, Co-editor of In Short, A Guide to Short Film-making in the Digital Age and Lecturer in Time Based Media, screenwriter and
• Paulo Manera, Short film curator and author of a forthcoming history of the short film.
• Angela Haardt, Independent consultant, curator and authoritative figure on the short film.

The aim of the Symposium is to provide members o' the international Short Film Community with a platform to discuss a wide range of topics such as 'Narrative Design of Short Films', 'Creating a Canon of Great Shorts', 'Cultural Diversity within Short Film Making' and 'The Death of the Short'

It is hoped that the Symposium will provide a valuable platform for open discussion about a unique art form and that the bringing together of the international short film community will allow for the collective development of ideas which will have a bearing on the future of the short.

Full details of the Symposium Programme are now available on the Cork Film Festival Website (www.corkfilmfest.org). For further information please contact Felim Mac Dermott, Symposium Organiser, at email: symposium@corkfilmfest.org or at tel: ++ 353 21 4271711

For further information please contact:

Eimear O'Brien,
Press Officer,
Cork Film Festival
Tel: 021 4271711/ 086 8900364
Email: press@corkfilmfest.org