by Vanessa Mangiavacca and Francesca Marchesini
Italian Short Film Atlas
Italian Culture and Short Film Industry
A project by Concorto Film Festival and Centro Nazionale del Cortometraggio, in collaboration with the Department of Arts – University of Bologna
Concorto Film Festival is back with events conceived to explore the trends and needs of the contemporary film industry. The Summer Connection was created six years ago with the aim of bringing together international and national professionals of the cinema industry and the festival audience, in order to foster the sharing of know-how, practices, experiences, visions and reflections on the languages of short film.
During the Industry Day 2025 event, the first phases of a two-year research project promoted by Concorto Film Festival and Centro Nazionale del Cortometraggio (Italian Short Film Center) will be presented, in collaboration with the Department of Arts – University of Bologna. This event aims to map the current Italian short film ecosystem and offer an analysis tool in support of cultural policies for short films in Italy.
The project stems from the need to fill a knowledge gap in the national audiovisual landscape; for instance, the lack of up-to-date, structured quantitative data, or the need for a critical reflection on the cultural, productive and distributive role of the short film format, now increasingly recognized as an autonomous form of expression and a prime field of artistic and professional experimentation, starting from training and educational institutions. The project (2025-2026) involves conducting surveys addressed to the key players in the industry: production companies, distributors, film schools, festivals, and markets, as well as analyzing the contributions and initiatives for the industry made by public and private institutions. The data collected will be jointly processed and analyzed with the aim of mapping a sector that is fragmented, but yet essential for understanding the future forms of expression of contemporary audiovisual media.
The results will be published in a final report, and presented to the public with the aim of starting a dialogue between professionals, scholars, and institutions. The first event will be held on Wednesday, August 20, in Piacenza (3-6 pm, Salone Amici dell’Arte of Galleria d’Arte Moderna Ricci Oddi, Via San Siro 13) as part of Industry Day 2025 of Concorto Film Festival. In this occasion, the methodological framework of the research will be presented and there will be a first dialogue with the main stakeholders of the sector, in order to initiate a shared reflection on the critical issues and perspectives of short films in Italy. The meetings will continue during the tenth edition of ShorTO Film Market, scheduled to take place in Turin in November 2025.