Welcome to the fifth edition of Amsterdam Shorts! Holland’s only international short film festival. After five years we have decided to once more revive this unique platform for strictly short films. We are inspired by the power of short film as an excellent medium for independence, guts, poetry and criticism on society. These qualities enable their makers to be farsighted, explore emotions of a single situation, tell a story straight with clinical precision or let abstraction run amuck.

From over 500 entries, sent in from all over the world to participate in the international competition, we have selected 85 short films that were unanimously approved of by our programming-team. Looking at this extraordinary selection, it is clear that the short film firmly deserves a place within the Dutch world of cinema. All selected shorts are films that excel in either originality, wit or engagement.

That over half of our selection consists of Dutch premieres is a testimony of the fact that not enough attention given to international shorts in the Netherlands. And let us be fair, we too have kept you waiting for many years for this fifth edition of Amsterdam Shorts! And after all these years we can barely do justice to the seemingly endless variety of quality short films on offer.

Our programme however, does not limit itself to the international competition and all the international shorts screened in it. It also presents sparkling new initiatives founded by other Dutch short film experts such as New Arrivals from broadcaster NPS, films by producer Submarine Channel and the finest of distributor Filmbank. Next to these showcases we offer two masterclasses, shorts for shorties kids programme and many more exciting extras and parties in our Shorts! Arena.

If it were up to us, the short film is here to stay. We hope to meet you at the festival or in the future so that together we can celebrate this very special niche in the world of film.

On behalf of the whole organisation we wish you happy viewing,

Saffron den Enting & Dirk van der Straaten - festival directors