From sailors exploring new seas to astronauts reaching space, we have always gazed to the sky with a desire to go further. Moonstep International Short Film Festival – A First Step into Cinema is created to keep looking up without ever stopping imagining. It’s an invitation to take the first step with daring, just like the first humans on the Moon.
We are looking for emerging artists, voices that demand to be heard, to offer them a space for expression and dialogue. In its first edition, this International Short Film Festival is a starting point for those who dream of making cinema their destination.
As good organizers, we too are ready to take the first step and get out there: behind the Moonstep International Short Film Festival there are 45 young people under 30, coming from Italy, Belgium and Hungary, all passionate about arts and event organization.
Moonstep is our first step into the world of cinema… and we want to do it in a big way!
M.S.F.F. reflects the essence of cinema: each film is a journey, a discovery, an act of imagination that leaves a mark. How the moon has inspired countless stories, the Moonstep International Short Film Festival wants to be a starting point for new narratives, a place where young cinematic art can shine with the same intensity as the night sky.
The moon is the perfect metaphor for a series of profound meanings that resonate with the impossible journey, the courage to explore the unknown and of course also the magic of cinema.
The subtitle A First Step into the Cinema completes the name of the festival, Moonstep, underlining its role as a launching pad for young talents. As important as the concept of "first step" does not only apply to emerging directors, who will participate in the festival, but also to festival organizers: we are a group of young people from Italy, Belgium and Hungary, who came together to give life to this event.
Theme of this edition of the Moonstep International Short Film Festival: (Dis)connection by frames is to reflect on the relationship between the individual, nature and technology, and on the way in which the various elements of our world are intertwined. The subtitle plays on the dualism between connection and disconnection, exploring how humans relate to their own reality through images, with a particular focus on the connection with the surrounding environment and the slowing down of the frenetic dynamics of daily life. Today disconnection and connection from opposites have practically become two synonyms, or one the consequence of the other, both due to the technological revolution we are facing and the continuous social changes. In this sense, the theme of alienation is central, of completely detaching ourselves from the world we live in, a world that does not seem to have understood the mistakes of the last century and continues to repeat itself; in this sense alienation is emblematic of what our generation, a generation with a strong break with previous generations and which would like to push towards a great change, but finds itself fighting with different realities (political, climatic, etc.) which barely support it. The invitation of the festival is to disconnect from the fast pace required, the constantly increasing novelties and impossible expectations, thus also finding a sort of "inner peace" by recreating moments of "slow life". Slowing down and awareness become tools of redemption, inviting us to rediscover the beauty of simplicity and authentic relationships.
Moonstep Short Film Festival is part of a project named “Be Unit”.
“Be Unit” is a youth lead project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ program and promoted by a partnership consisting of Cooperativa Orso and Epica Film (based in Turin), Pour la Solidarité (based in Brussels), and Galileo Non Profit (based in Budapest).
