Cockpera by Kata Gugić is screening in the Six xxx Love programme, which is part of the International Competition section. In addition to the festival’s Grand Prix, the short animated film produced by the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and co-produced by Zagreb Film will be competing for the Ingmar Bergman Award bestowed on promising young artists, while a three-member jury will also nominate one film for a European Film Award.     

In addition, the Uppsala Short Film Festival features the Former Yugoslavia Now programme.  

“Filmmakers in the Balkans tend to come from or live in big cities, and for a long time most of the works they delivered were decidedly urban. However, in recent years, this has changed and young directors increasingly look at the countryside as a setting and a state of mind. In this selection you will find both aspects, and realise that they are actually quite complementary, and that their topics and artistic approaches are often interchangeable. This dynamic shows the untameable spirit of people living in the region that used to be one country and is still a common cultural space,” says the description of the Former Yugoslavia Now programme, which is divided into two sections: Rural Joy and Urban Drama. 

The Rural Joy thematic section features Croatian documentary From Kršan to Peroj (2015) directed by Igor Bezinović, and fiction film No Wolf Has a House (2015) by Hana Jušić. The programme curator is Tina Poglajen. 

The section dedicated to Urban Drama features documentary White Trash by Sunčica Ana Veldić and fiction short The Beast by Miroslav Sikavica. This section is curated by Vladan Petković. 

The Uppsala Short Film Festival is held at cinemas Regina and Grand, as well as online, via the festival platform Kortfilmfestivalen Play. The festival is held in accordance with epidemiological guidelines, which means only 50 persons per screening are allowed at the theatres, while Swedish audiences will also be able to watch all the films online during the festival, 19th – 25th October.

The Uppsala Short Film Festival is the main short film festival in Sweden, every year featuring over 300 titles that celebrate the diversity and richness of the short film format. The winning titles in the National and International competition programmes qualify for Oscars, BAFTA awards, as well as the European Film Awards.  For more information, please visit the Uppsala Short Film Festival’s official website. 

Cover photographs: Uppsala Short Film Festival visuals; scenes from Cockpera, From Kršan to Peroj, No Wolf Has a House, White Trash, The Beast.