Inferenze Short Film Festival (8)

Festival start: 21 October 2026      Festival end: 25 October 2026

We live in a time that moves fast, where the visible is everything, simplicity prevails, and complexity disturbs. In this time, we choose short cinema. Not to simplify, but to condense. Not to explain, but to suggest.

Inferenze Short Film Festival is a space of passage, a crossing between the visible and the invisible, between memory and imagination. Here, each short film is a minimal gesture that digs deep. Each story is a layering: fragments of reality, visions, languages, sounds and silences. A thought settles into the image. An image awakens thought.

We chose an archaeological museum as our venue because the past, too, is an inference: we never see it completely, but we sense its form through ruins, through the traces that remain. Just like cinema, true meaning never reveals itself entirely, but emerges from nuances, unspoken moments, and the spaces between words.

The subtitle of this eighth edition, “Epiphanies of the Specter" points to a moment of revelation: when what is latent takes shape and becomes visible. The festival focuses on these apparitions, favoring works that question the image and challenge its boundaries, between presence and absence, reality and perception.

Inferenze is the festival that celebrates complexity, ambiguity, the question itself. We are not looking for easy answers, but new questions. We don’t offer pre-packaged visions, but invitations to think. This is our way of looking at the world. Beneath the surface, there is always something more.

1. Awards

• Beneath the Surface Award – Best International Short
(La Civetta" Prize – an exclusive handcrafted terracotta statuette created by Neapolitan artist Tiziana D’Auria, inspired by Athena’s owl, symbol of knowledge and vision beyond appearances. This award honors the courage of a personal cinematic language, the ability to evoke the invisible, and the power of imagery that leaves a lasting impression)

To the short film that best represents the festival’s poetics: an original gaze on reality, capable of questioning, diverting, opening.

• Visions from Campania Award
(Mounted plaque)

To the best short made by a Campanian author or set in Campania, for its powerful exploration of the territory in a contemporary key.

• Future Gazes Award
(Simple plaque)

To the best school short, for its originality and expressive sensitivity within an educational context.

• Interstitial Spaces Award: Epiphanies of the Specter
(Mounted plaque with unique design)

To the film that most embodies the liminal tension of the section: a short that becomes a moment of revelation.

Special Prizes
• Possible special mention by the Jury
(Simple plaque)

For works that stand out for a specific quality (screenwriting, editing, cinematography, sound, etc.).

• Audience Award
(Simple plaque)

Voted by viewers during the festival screenings, to promote active audience participation.

2. Juries

Art. 1 – Jury Composition

1.1 Technical Jury
Composed of 3 to 7 members, selected among filmmakers, film critics, curators, university lecturers, visual artists, and audiovisual professionals. Members are appointed by the festival’s artistic direction and remain confidential until the event begins.

Awards assigned:
• Best International Short – Beneath the Surface
• Best Short – Visions from Campania
• Interstitial Spaces Award
• Possible Jury Special Mentions

1.2 Youth Jury
Made up of high school and university students, selected through a public call or in collaboration with educational institutions.
Members range from 5 to 15.

Award assigned:
• Best Short – Future Gazes

1.3 Audience Jury
All audience members attending in-person screenings of competition films may vote for the Audience Award. Voting is done via paper ballot distributed before the screenings and collected afterward. The film with the most votes receives:
• Inferenze 2026 Audience Award

Art. 2 – Voting Procedures

2.1 Technical Jury
Each member votes numerically or with a written motivation (at the artistic direction’s discretion). The award is granted by simple majority. In case of a tie, the jury president’s vote prevails.

2.2 Youth Jury
Members gather after screenings to deliberate together. The award goes to a short deemed especially meaningful to the young audience.

2.3 Audience Jury
Each viewer may vote for their favorite short screened in the session. Votes are anonymous and counted by the organizational staff. The film with the most total preferences wins the Audience Award.

Art. 3 – Evaluation Criteria

All juries are encouraged to consider the following, with varying sensibilities:
• Originality of the idea
• Technical and stylistic quality
• Expressive power and evocative capacity
• Thematic relevance to the spirit of the festival
• Innovation in cinematic language

3.1 Evaluation – Interstitial Spaces Section
Assigned by the Technical Jury

The short films selected for the “Intercapedini” section will be evaluated according to a dedicated rubric that considers their hybrid, conceptual, and experimental nature.

Specific Criteria:
1. Conceptual Power
– The short film’s ability to articulate an abstract, philosophical, or enigmatic idea through audiovisual language.

2. Atmosphere and Poetic Tension
– How the work constructs a suspended, sensorial, emotional, or symbolic dimension.

3. Linguistic Transgression
– The originality and boldness in the use of form, structure, editing, voice, sound, and image.

4. Relevance to the Spirit of “Intercapedini”
– Coherence with the themes of the invisible, the liminal, and the unspoken.

5. Visual Impact and Memorability
– The lasting impression the work leaves on the viewer’s eye and mind.

1. What is Isff?
Inferenze Short Film Festival is a space for vision and thought dedicated to short cinema. In a time saturated with images, the festival seeks complex, layered perspectives capable of evoking the invisible. The screenings take place in an archaeological museum — a place where the past meets vision.

2. Competition Sections
The Inferenze Short Film Festival program is structured into various sections, each exploring the short form through distinct perspectives and approaches. Some categories follow geographical lines, others embrace emerging voices or showcase out-of-competition works. Together, they draw a fluid map of contemporary thought through images.

• Beneath the Surface (International Short Film Competition)
The festival’s main section. A selection of short films from around the world that explore reality with an auteur’s gaze — through languages, aesthetics, and narratives capable of igniting reflection, doubt, and vision.

• Visions from Campania (Works by authors born/residing in Campania or set in the regional territory)
An identitary layer, this section highlights local perspectives, between memory, body, landscape, and new generations of filmmakers.

• Interstitial Spaces (Thematic section – annual focus: “Epiphanies of the Specter”)
This is the festival’s most enigmatic and radical section. It is not a category but a traversal. Each year it takes on new forms and questions, acting as a poetic and conceptual filter for the current edition. This is the space for short films that escape labels, that dwell in the unsaid, the margins, the stratified invisible. Works that don’t seek answers but open thresholds and become revelation. It is within these fractures that Inferenze finds its identity and reaffirms its mission to probe complexity through short cinema.

• Future Gazes (School Shorts – formerly Ciak a Scuola)
The section dedicated to short films created within educational and training programs. A space for youthful experimentation and the discovery of emerging expressive languages.

• Drifts and Reflections (formerly Out of Competition)
A free and transversal journey. Works that, though not in official competition, stand out for visual strength, thematic urgency, or original language. An open field for wonder.

Please note: The selection committee reserves the right to assign each short to the most appropriate section based on artistic and thematic criteria. Directors may indicate a preferred section in the Director’s Statement or Cover Letter, but this is not binding.

3. Eligibility Requirements

• Open to short films of any genre (fiction, documentary, animation, experimental)
• Maximum duration: 25 minutes, including credits and acknowledgments. This rule does not apply to school shorts – Future gazes – which must be no longer than 5 minutes.
• Production years: 2024–2026
• Subtitles in Italian and/or english are required if the original language is not Italian

4. Submission Guidelines

• Submission Fee and deadlines:

- Early Bird deadline: 5€ (May 25, 2026)
- Regular deadline: 10€ (June 30, 2026)
- Late deadline:15€ (July 20, 2026)
- Extended deadline: 20€ (August 10, 2026)
- Free for the Future Gazes (school shorts) section

5. Rights and Permissions

• Filmmakers retain the rights to their works.
• By submitting, they authorize public screening during the festival and the use of excerpts for promotional purposes.

6. Terms of Acceptance

• Participation in the competition implies full acceptance of these guidelines.