This year’s Internationaal Kortfilmfestival Leuven (Belgium) will present “Milestones in Short Film History”, four programmes of 30 short films produced in the century between 1900 and 2000 that left their mark on cinematic history.

As it would be impossible to trace the entire history of short film in the course of four programmes with a combined running time of just 400 minutes, the curators have selected films that demonstrate how new developments in film were first tested out in the short form. The selections thus include the first “talkie”, the first film in colour and the first computer-generated film. Another focus is on aesthetic innovations and new genres – for example the first Nouvelle Vague film and the first music film.

The featured films will be introduced at the festival by film scholars, and research conducted to compile the programmes is published in English.

Further information: http://www.kortfilmfestival.be/ikl2011/programma.php?programma=26&nr=1

In October the organization Africa First announced which short-film projects will be funded this year. Five filmmakers from Africa will receive $10,000 toward the production of new short films: Oshosheni Hiveluah (from Namibia); Cedric Ido (from Burkina Faso); Mark Middlewick (from South Africa);  Akosua Adoma Owusu (from Ghana) and Zelalem Woldemariam (from Ethiopia).

This is the fourth year that Africa First has promoted filmmakers and productions on the African continent. Previously sponsored films have been shown at festivals in Sundance, Toronto, Berlin and elsewhere. Africa First is an initiative of Focus Features, founded by NBC and Vivendi Universal. The Africa First programme is overseen by the New York production company Completion Films.

Africa First: http://www.focusfeatures.com/africafirst/apply.php

Festival Scope is a new film-industry distribution platform that offers films from festival programmes as video-on-demand. Festival Scope sees itself as an all-round tool for accessing the international festival scene and would like to support the reach and sale of films presented at festivals.

The partners of Festival Scope are film festivals rather than the filmmakers and producers directly. More than 50 international festivals are already participating in the beta version. Among them are short film festivals like Clermont-Ferrand and Vila do Conde. Currently, some 300 short films can be viewed on Festival Scope.

Access is reserved exclusively for film professionals – following registration and a credential check. Certain restrictions and copy-protection precautions are in place to prevent copyright infringements and misuse. For example, films can be viewed only once and the name of the viewer is superimposed on the film.

Registered users can view films and contact the director or rights holder. Media such as trailers, interviews or clips can be integrated into the film pages. The filmmakers or producers can also offer promotional materials such as photos or flyers for download. They furthermore receive detailed reports on the usage of their offerings. The programme of films is supplemented by news from the international festival scene.

Behind the Festival Scope brand is the newly founded company Moving Scope SAS (Paris). The project receives support from MEDIA and the RIAM Network and is co-financed by the French CNC.

URL: http://www.festivalscope.com

Digitising Contemporary Art (DCA) is a European consortium devoted to making contemporary European art available to viewers online. In a 30-month digitisation project that began in early 2011 and which is supported by the European Union, high-quality reproductions are being made of more than 20,000 artworks. These include paintings, photographs, sculptures, installations and videos. The results are to be published on the portal Europeana .

The background behind the initiative is the fact that contemporary art has to date not been incorporated in the European cultural heritage portal Europeana. DCA now wants to close this gap and hence stimulate public interest in contemporary art by facilitating access.

DCA is collaborating with museums and art collections. The 21 collections come from 12 European countries. The digital images and films produced in the context of DCA will then also become part of the digital collections of all other participating institutions.

The DCA consortium is preparing meta-data and images for over 26,921 artworks and 1,857 contextualized documents for publication on Europeana. These include masterpieces created in various disciplines by the foremost artists from many of the countries of Europe.

Partners of the enterprise include the following institutions, most of them working in video: argos, EMAF, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Transmediale and WRO Art Center.

Project coordinator is PACKED - Centre of Expertise in Digital Heritage (Brussels). Responsible for publicizing information on the project is LCCA - Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (Riga).

URL: http://www.digitisingcontemporaryart.eu