• The festival has received over 1200 films for the Official Section and a total of 133 short films for the Young Audiovisual Workshop
• Cinema Jove has registered and increase of 312 submissions in the competing categories of the festival from last edition.

The 34th edition of València International Film Festival – Cinema Jove, organized by the Institut Valencià de Cultura, will take place from the 21st to the 28th of June, with the goal of celebrating upcoming audiovisual talent and serving as showcase for the best international young filmmaking.

This year, a total of 1211 films have entered the feature film and short film selection process to be part of the Official Section competitions; 292 films more than in 2018. This increase in participants, and the presence of younger guest directors -many in their twenties-, “confirm the identity of the Festival,” considers Director, Carlos Madrid. “For the last two years we’ve been highlighting the specialization of the event, and Cinema Jove has become a reference for distributors as a niche where talented upcoming filmmakers can premiere their work.”

The films in competition sum up to 60 different nationalities. Most of them, a total of 301, have been produced in Spain. This number is followed in quantity by European productions, with a total of 628 films, most of them from France and Germany -with 108 and 60 films, respectively-, and Poland, with 35 films, followed by Latin American, with 113 films.

As interesting data, the Director of the Festival points out the increase in submissions from Romania, Iran and South Korea, with 17, 11 and 17 films, respectively. All three countries count with a history of quality filmmaking, and had never been so present in the Festival.

In the short-film sections, where Cinema Jove also accepts submissions pertaining to the documentary genre, Carlos Madrid underlines the presence of “interesting hybrids between documentary and fiction.” Furthermore, the short-film section illustrates the democratization of the industry and emergence of new technologies in filmmaking, with the presence of digital examples and films that reproduce the format and textures of cell-phone filming.

The deadline for submissions closed on March 19th. At the moment, the selecting committee of each category is deliberating which films will be selected to compete in the two Official Sections of the Festival.

Aulas de cine

 On the other hand, the Young Audiovisual Workshop has received 133 short-films from all over Spain; an increase in 29 films from the previous edition.  The selected films will be presented during the three days this competition takes place in Cinema Jove; representing a space entirely dedicated to filmmaking education.

The screening includes three categories. Category A is dedicated to filmmakers up to 12 years of age (pre-school and primary school students), with a total of 16 participating short-films. Category B, assigned to Secondary and High School students between 13 and 18 years of age, has received 37 submissions. Category C, which intends to promote the work of students of Film Degrees, universities, other educational centers and youth associations aged between 16 and 24, has received 80 projects.