“The Wedding Cake” awarded at the Sarno Film Festival!

What an incredible weekend for me and my little “The Wedding Cake”! Yesterday the victory at the Roma Film Corto, and today the Special Mention at prestigious Sarno Film Festival!

Thank you, really heartfelt thanks to the jury and to the organizers of the SFF: Dea Squillante (Artistic Director), Ivana Duca, Claudia Prisco and Francesca Diodato (visible in the photo of the last edition of the festival), who gave me this wonderful opportunity to show the my short!

This is the motivation:
The SFF attributes a Special Mention to the Italian short film “The Wedding Cake” by Monica Mazzitelli for dealing with a hard and deeply tragic story, that is unfortunately so common, albeit unspoken. An important theme, told through effective visual metaphors, concise, and with a good use of photography.

This is my presentation, in Italian:

“The Wedding Cake” wins at the Roma Film Corto 2020!

“The Wedding Cake” wins the “Social Cinema” section at the Roma Film Corto 2020!!!

This is the video I shot yesterday (in Italian!) to happily thank the Artistic Director Roberto Petrocchi and the jury, headed by the acclaimed actor Leo Gullotta, for choosing “The Wedding Cake” as best short in the “Social Cinema” section of the 2020 edition of the Roma Film Corto film festival!

A grant from SFV

I am SO proud!!!!
The Sveriges Film- och Videoförbund (SFV) in collaboration with the Sveriges Kortfilmfestival have bestowed a grant to me in order to support me in the development of my next project connected to the animation documentary film that I have been working on since 3 years now.
My next story is called “The Tunnel” and it is probably the toughest to tell, but I will manage with the help of the glorious embroidery artist Cristina Hagander, my partner in life and editing Mikael Moiner and last but not least the fantastic animator Flemming Borgen-Nielsen, who is going to make sense of this all 🙂
The project is developing really well under the wings of Lovisa Charlier from Tangram Film!

“The Wedding Cake” at the Roma Film Corto!

Albeit only virtually, I am glad to be back home to compete at the Roma Film Corto film festival! I am finalist in the section Social Value, a big honor for me!

The festival will be online with awarding ceremony on december 19th, on the festival Facebook page.

Sarno FF: selection # 40 for The Wedding Cake!

What an incredible journey for The Wedding Cake! Who would have expected such great and constant success? 40 festivals today, with the latest notable addition of a show that I follow with interest for its high ethical and social content, the Sarno Film Festival. From 15 to 20 December join the online edition by registering on the plattform here. The Wedding Cake is finalist in the animated short film session!

I WON THE FICC!!!

I AM JUMPING WITH JOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I JUST WON THE 49TH EDITION OF THE FICC!!!!!

I can’t believe it!!! The Wedding Cake was chosen as best shortfilm for this edition of the FICC Festival Internacional de Cine de Cartagena! Starting at 31:34 you can watch the presenter introducing the mayor of the City of Cartagena, Ana Belén Castejón Hernández, announcing my victory, and following that myself thanking for the win, super emotional! I did that in Spanish, with the help of my super friend Giulia Colavolpe Severi!

Here is the English translation of my short speech:
“I am delighted to win this award. I would never have imagined winning at such a big and prestigious festival, among so many fantastic competitors. I am humbled and moved by your appreciation and I enjoy it even more because this short film means so much to me. It is a pilot for a larger art project on prostitution and pornography that I hope to complete one day. Winning this award today gives me hope and makes me feel supported in my desire that one day that larger project will see the light of day. Once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart!”

 

The Wedding Cake at the 74th edition of the Festival di Salerno!

The Wedding Cake enters the competition at the 74th edition of the Festival Internazionale del Cinema di Salerno! It is one of the oldest festivals in Italy as it was started at the end of the war, in 1946, to host 16 mm films instead of 35 mm ones.

A long history therefore, of which I am obviously proud to be a part.

“Animacion para adultos” reviews “The Wedding Cake”!

I feel truly elated by this review of “The Wedding Cake” by the Spanish site Animación para adultos that makes me happy not only for its important content but also for the very high score I got: 8.5/10!

I want to thank again both Mikael Moiner for his photography and Adriana Rosati, who took care of the scenography, both rightly highlighted in the review. The short is scheduled online this week at the splendid FICC – Festival de Cine de Cartagena.

Here is a translation of the text from Spanish:

The Wedding Cake narrates the drama of a woman who is forced into prostitution to avoid the jail that awaits her if she does not pay the debts of her husband, who has run away and left her alone with her two children. The shocking story is illustrated with Playmobil figurines, so a huge contrast is created between the innocence and inexpressiveness of the photos and the harshness of the narrative. There is, on the other hand, a brilliant staging, such as the wedding cake-childbirth scene, and the one that shows the inhuman prostitution sessions to which the protagonist was subjected.
The short also raises the debate on whether or not this can be considered animation, because although it uses a shooting technique identical to that of stop-motion with figurines, the slowness with which it moves from one frame to another prevents the illusion of movement from being created. I do believe that it is animation, a kind of slow and experimental stop-motion, but I understand that there are those who do not agree. In any case, inviting this reflection on its nature is just one of the many valuable aspects of The Wedding Cake, although the main one is its denunciation of the women trafficking networks, a scourge of contemporary society against which we must keep on fighting.