Garden in Movies/ShortFilmFest (4)

Inicio Festival: 01 agosto 2025      Fin Festival: 03 agosto 2025

The Garden-in-Movies Film Festival, founded in 2017 as part of the Radicepura Garden Festival, a biennial event dedicated to Mediterranean landscape design, has reached its fourth edition and will take place on August 1-3, 2025, at the Radicepura Botanical Park in Giarre (Catania, Italy).

At the heart of the festival is the intersection between gardens and cinematic storytelling, explored from a broad perspective that embraces fundamental cultural, political, social, and artistic values. The themes go beyond nature and landscape to include ecology, sustainability, education, culture, human rights, social engagement, and environmental awareness.

The Garden-in-Movies/ShortFilmFest International Short Film Competition is open to all works that, through cinematic language, highlight nature, the environment, landscape, ecology, and sustainability as key drivers of growth and cultural exchange. However, the "garden" is also seen as a metaphor for any place, context, dynamic, or relationship that fosters and nurtures essential cultural, political, social, and artistic values. Therefore, films that interpret the concept of "garden" from this perspective are also eligible for selection.

SELECTION PROCESS & AWARDS

At the end of the submission period, all works received within the established deadline will be reviewed by the Garden-in-Movies artistic direction, assisted by a selection committee, which will choose a shortlist of finalist films.

The finalist films will be screened during the 4th edition of Garden-in-Movies (August 1-3, 2025) and will compete for the Best Short Film Award and the Audience Award.

The awards will be granted by a qualified jury and a popular jury.

The qualified jury will consist of three members appointed by the Festival's artistic direction, selected among experts in cinema, television, arts, culture, journalism, entertainment, and landscape studies.

The popular jury will be composed of the audience attending the screenings, who will be able to cast their votes through dedicated ballots distributed during the three evenings of the Festival.

Any special mentions, awarded by the qualified jury, will be announced during the award ceremony.

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS

The Garden-in-Movies/ShortFilmFest International Short Film Competition is open to all fiction, documentary, and animated short films of any narrative genre (drama, comedy, thriller, sci-fi, fantasy, noir, etc.), with a maximum duration of 15 minutes (including opening and closing credits), from any country, whether previously released or not, as long as they were produced after January 1, 2023.

All films in Italian must have English subtitles, and all films in English must have Italian subtitles. Films in any other foreign language (other than English) must have Italian subtitles, and preferably English subtitles as well.

SUBMISSION & DEADLINE

Short films must be submitted through the application form available on this page.
For more information, please contact gardeninmovies@radicepura.com or call +39 095964154.

The submission deadline for entries and required materials is April 30, 2025.