Give as a gift
The Italian Cultural Institute of Washington, in collaboration with Centro Nazionale del Cortometraggio (Italian Short Film Center), is celebrating International Short Film Day with you. From December 21st, the shortest day of the year, join us online for a captivating streaming event.
This selection of contemporary Italian shorts brings together stories of artificial intelligence, memory, and political awareness to explore how images, sounds, and small everyday gestures shape our sense of reality.
From an AI prototype raised like a child to alchemical reworkings of archival footage, from the torpor of a provincial summer to the anxious urgency of digital data and online debate, each short probes the fragile boundary between perception and meaning, asking what it means to think, remember, and take a stand in the present moment.
Various Directors
Total runtime: 91 minutes
Shorts in Italian with English subtitles
--------------
SHORT FILM PROGRAM
154 – Riccardo Copreni and Andrea Sbarbaro
Italy, 2024 – 20′
The prototype “154” is a highly sophisticated artificial intelligence, able to learn autonomously from its surroundings and develop its own form of thought. Over the course of just seven days, its rapid evolution poses a crucial question: can autonomous thought truly exist without emotion?
Tempi Morti – Giacomo Tazzini
Italy, 2024 – 15′
Sun, heat, sweat, boredom: the Italian summer unfolds in a small provincial town. For Luca, a young man in his twenties, it is a day like any other—until something absurd suddenly breaks the monotony and turns his world upside down.
De Occulta Imagine – Stefano P. Testa
Italy, 2024 – 16′
Archival documentary images on the “Southern Question” from the AAMOD collection are decontextualized and recomposed according to an alchemical logic, forging new symbolic and hermetic connections. The film rejects a single, fixed meaning and invites viewers into an open, emotional, and interpretive drift.
Abuse Of Perfect Data – Viola Casartelli
Italy, 2024 – 7′
Generational memory emerges through analog home-movie footage shot by the artist’s grandfather, set against the speed and volatility of the digital age. The film meditates on anxiety, cultural legacy, and how personal archives are reshaped in an era ruled by data.
The Eggregors’ Theory – Andrea Gatopoulos
Italy, 2024 – 15′
Memories of that time have faded, like the colors of a painting exposed to too much light. Only a haunting piece of music remains, looping in his mind and leading into a dystopian future where new technologies, outlawed art, and fragmented language question individuality itself.
Sounds Like Politics – Silvia Poeta Paccati
Italy, 2025 – 17′
A former Taekwondo champion and two friends gaming online offer sharply different perspectives on what it means to defend or attack. Through their exchanges, the film shows how a single detail perceived by the viewer can radically transform a story and its moral weight.
- Year2024-2025
- LanguageItalian
- CountryItaly
- Subtitle LanguageEnglish
- Directorsee each short
The Italian Cultural Institute of Washington, in collaboration with Centro Nazionale del Cortometraggio (Italian Short Film Center), is celebrating International Short Film Day with you. From December 21st, the shortest day of the year, join us online for a captivating streaming event.
This selection of contemporary Italian shorts brings together stories of artificial intelligence, memory, and political awareness to explore how images, sounds, and small everyday gestures shape our sense of reality.
From an AI prototype raised like a child to alchemical reworkings of archival footage, from the torpor of a provincial summer to the anxious urgency of digital data and online debate, each short probes the fragile boundary between perception and meaning, asking what it means to think, remember, and take a stand in the present moment.
Various Directors
Total runtime: 91 minutes
Shorts in Italian with English subtitles
--------------
SHORT FILM PROGRAM
154 – Riccardo Copreni and Andrea Sbarbaro
Italy, 2024 – 20′
The prototype “154” is a highly sophisticated artificial intelligence, able to learn autonomously from its surroundings and develop its own form of thought. Over the course of just seven days, its rapid evolution poses a crucial question: can autonomous thought truly exist without emotion?
Tempi Morti – Giacomo Tazzini
Italy, 2024 – 15′
Sun, heat, sweat, boredom: the Italian summer unfolds in a small provincial town. For Luca, a young man in his twenties, it is a day like any other—until something absurd suddenly breaks the monotony and turns his world upside down.
De Occulta Imagine – Stefano P. Testa
Italy, 2024 – 16′
Archival documentary images on the “Southern Question” from the AAMOD collection are decontextualized and recomposed according to an alchemical logic, forging new symbolic and hermetic connections. The film rejects a single, fixed meaning and invites viewers into an open, emotional, and interpretive drift.
Abuse Of Perfect Data – Viola Casartelli
Italy, 2024 – 7′
Generational memory emerges through analog home-movie footage shot by the artist’s grandfather, set against the speed and volatility of the digital age. The film meditates on anxiety, cultural legacy, and how personal archives are reshaped in an era ruled by data.
The Eggregors’ Theory – Andrea Gatopoulos
Italy, 2024 – 15′
Memories of that time have faded, like the colors of a painting exposed to too much light. Only a haunting piece of music remains, looping in his mind and leading into a dystopian future where new technologies, outlawed art, and fragmented language question individuality itself.
Sounds Like Politics – Silvia Poeta Paccati
Italy, 2025 – 17′
A former Taekwondo champion and two friends gaming online offer sharply different perspectives on what it means to defend or attack. Through their exchanges, the film shows how a single detail perceived by the viewer can radically transform a story and its moral weight.
- Year2024-2025
- LanguageItalian
- CountryItaly
- Subtitle LanguageEnglish
- Directorsee each short
