I'VE SEEN FILMS 2008 The Festival ended end with a very successful response from the audience and the authors alike.
The launching pad of this international short film Festival has been the Tiscali InShort contest, hosted by Tiscali in cooperation with CortoWeb in the http://video.tiscali.it channel. The short film authors have also had the opportunity to enjoy a wider visibility thanks to the airing of their works on Tiscali.TV’s Corto Ciack channel, the innovative Tiscali’s IPTV launched last December and presently available in 10 Italian cities (Cagliari, Rome, Milan, Turin, Bologna, Trieste, Genova, Florence, Naples and Palermo).
The short films participating in the first edition of ‘I’ve Seen Films’ will also take part in the ‘Tiscali InShort’ event where in the coming months the final ‘Tiscali InShort Golden Award’ will be assigned.
The internet contest, with 132 online competing works that received more than 250,000 views on the Tiscali.it portal, ended with the Gala Evening at the Skyline Multiplex location in Milan, with the assignment of the two Tiscali InShort awards. The audience Tiscali InShort Award went to ‘Black & White’ by Simone Nepote Andrè (Italy) while the jury Tiscali InShort Special Award went to ‘Schemeren’ by Jenneke Boeijink (the Netherlands).
The Festival’s Gala Award evening, hosted by producer, director and writer Bill Bristow, with the skilled vocal Trio ‘The Blue Dolls’, formed by Erika Celesti, Federica Pallante and Viviana Dragani, has honoured the winners of the first edition of ‘I’ve Seen Films’. Alessandra Marongiu, Head of TV Channels, Tiscali.TV, joined Rutger Hauer in handing out the two Tiscali InShort awards to the authors who were in attendance at the ceremony.
The International Jury, formed by Bill Bristow, Ludovico Einaudi, Richard Gere, Rutger Hauer, Massimo Maisetti, Annie Perkins, Robert Rodriguez, Paul Verhoeven, Ridley Scott and Chiara Valenti Omero also assigned the following awards:
For the Best Short Film, 20th Century Fox H.E. Award, ‘Das Baby’, by Falco Jagau (Germany)
For the Best Fiction, Warner Home Video Award, ‘DVD’ by Ciro Altabas (Spain)
For the Best First Work, JVC Award, ‘Corações Plásticos’ by Sérgio Brás d'Almeida (Portugal)
For the Best Animation, ISCA Award, ‘Lapsus’ by Juan Pablo Zaramella (Argentina)
For the Best Actor, Metro News Award, Massimo Foschi with ‘L’Esame’ by Andrea De Sica (Italy)
For the Best Actress, Best Movie Magazine Award, Pippa Galli with ‘Das Baby’by Falco Jagau (Germany)
For the Best Documentary, MyMovies Award ‘Hero Wings Are Not Necessary to Fly’ by Angel Loza (Spain)
For the Best Experimental Short Film, CortoWeb Aaward, ‘7 ½ Frauen’ by Bidzina Kanchaveli (Germany)
For Best Film4AIDS, Oilily Award, ‘Plague Spreader’ by Francesco Calderone (Italy)
For the Special Jury Award, ‘Ableman’s Final Account’ by Christopher Trappe (Australia)

Two Special Jury mentions went to ‘The Heart of Amos Klein’ by Michal Pfeffer and Uri Kranot (Israel/France) and ‘Be in It’ (Australia) by Simon Elrahi.

Six ‘I’ve Seen Films’ Special Acknowledgements went to
‘The Real Action Heroes’ by Mark Wallaard (the Netherlands)
‘Wizard of OS: The Fish Incident’ by Tom Jantol (Croatia)
‘Ringtone’ by Jeremy Boxen (Canada)
‘H5N1’ by Roberto De Feo (Italy)
‘Integration’ by Dave Michael Guller Grønvall-Pedersen (Denmark)
the Blue Dolls and Hermes Mangialardo and for their ‘Handful of Keys’ videoclip (Italy)

A very special award dedicated to Social Awareness was bestowed on Enzo Iacchetti for his heart touching short film ‘Pazza di te’ (‘Crazy for You’). Enzo Iacchetti attended the Ceremony and offered the audience some beautiful comments concerning Italian comedians and their difficulty in being accepted as artists who are also committed to social themes.
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A Special Acknowledgement was offered to Peter Joseph (USA) for his internet sensation documentary ‘Zeitgeist’. Peter Joseph also held an extremely interesting and provocative Q&A session with the audience after the ‘Zeitgeist’ screening.

The awards were personally handed out to the authors by Rutger Hauer.

The program of the festival also included some very special screenings such as ‘Blade Runner - The Final Cut’ by Ridley Scott in its brand-new and astounding digital 2K version, and for the first (and probably only) time on the big screen, special courtesy of the Blade Runner Partnership, ‘Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner’ by Charles de Lauzirika.

The ‘I’ve Seen Films’ first year edition has distinguished itself amongst other film festivals also for two other important factors: the short film authors were able to watch their works in a big theater screening room, and their works have been screened in a masterfully digitalized version, which allowed a fantastic and high-quality video definition which gathered enthusiastic praises from audience and film authors alike.

A very interesting note is that - as it very seldom happens in the film festival world - practically all winning authors personally attended the Festival both during the whole 5-day screening program, as well as during the Gala Award evening. The authors, who came from all four corners of the world: Australia, Denmark, Argentina, Germany, Canada, Croatia, Portugal, etc., did not want to miss this important gathering with the international filmmaking world.

I'VE SEEN FILMS International Short Film Festival was founded in 2007 by Rutger Hauer with the goal of independently promoting, on a world-wide basis and also through the internet streaming medium, the works of filmmakers desiring powerful exposure and visibility to their films, and the results of this first edition superbly accomplished this difficult task, also thanks to the prestigious ‘I’ve Seen Films’ International Jury.
The proceeds from the sale of the theater tickets go to the fight against the AIDS disease.

The 2009 ‘I’ve Seen Films’ Call for Entry will be launched very soon from the Festival’s official website.