Entries for films and screenplays for the ninth edition of the Cinema Corto in Bra festival, to be held June 24-27 this year, have now closed. For the last few weeks, the offices of Bracinetica, the event's organizer, have been flooded with hundreds of films from around the world. The festival, previously biannual and now held annually, expanded its international contacts this year, and as a result the number of entries for the competitions has doubled. The artistic committee is now working its way through the films, which must be less than 30 minutes long and made after January 1, 2009. They will be watching about 200 films from Italy; over 500 from all of Europe; 100 from India, China and the rest of Asia; as many again from Central and South America and 50 or so from Africa.

There is also a good representation of independent productions from the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Taken as whole, they offer a privileged look into the feelings, dreams, hopes and fears of a generation of young filmmakers from around the world. The thousand or so entries will be whittled down to the 15 Italian films competing in the Corto in Italia competition (€2,000 prize) and the 30 international films competing for the International Shorts prize (€3,500). The selections will be announced in the last week of May.
Over a hundred entries have also been received from Italian writers hoping to win the prestigious prize for best original Italian screenplay for a short film, with the winner receiving €7,000 to make their film. This year the competition will be linked to a script-development workshop held during the festival.