By mid-January, festival life still remains in slumber, but the latter half of the month will make up for this drought. Short film fans should already be preparing for the Premiers Plans Film Festival and the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in France, as well as Slamdance in the US or Flickerfest in Australia. There will be a quite a bit going on, so let’s do a catch-up.

Film Maudit 2.0 launches on 12 January in the US, with Crumbs of Life by Katarzyna Miechowicz in its competition. The famous Slamdance Film Festival begins a week later. Maria Nitek's Hierophany has been included in its competition.

The Flickerfest International Short Film Festival will be taking place on the other side of the globe. Julia Orlik will be competing for the audience and jurors' attention with her new documentary This Will Not Be a Festival Film.

Several French-language film events will also be held in the second half of the month. First, it's time for the Premiers Plans Film Festival in France with three Polish films – Crab by Piotr Chmielewski, Five Minutes Older by Sara Szymańska, and the short fiction Alcibiades by Robert Kwilman. Then comes the Courts Mais Trash Brussels Independent Short Film Festival in Belgium with Julia Siuda's Fury making an in-competition appearance. The extremely prestigious Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival will be the cherry on top. The program of the French event includes The Devil by Jan Bujnowski, the animated film Slow Light by the Kijek/Adamski duo and Crab by Piotr Chmielewski.

You can find the complete list of festival screenings here.

JANUARY 2023