‘Paradise Europe’, showcased at Vilnius Short Film Festival, wins the Talking Shorts’ New Critics & New Audiences Award

After two weeks of online voting, the winner of the recently-launched award hosted by the online short film magazine Talking Shorts, and supported by the Creative Europe MEDIA programme, is now finally known.
As the official outlet of the European Network for Film Discourse (The END), Talking Shorts hosted the first edition of the New Critics and New Audiences Award from February 7th to the 21st, building bridges between aspiring film critics and new audiences for European (short) films.
All participants of the 2023 editions of the European Workshop for Film Criticism, powered by The END and co-hosted by Talking Shorts, nominated one European short film at each festival they visited; their collective favourite out of (inter)national competitions at Vienna Shorts (AT), Filmfest Dresden (DE), Kortfilmfestival Leuven (BE), Vilnius SFF (LT), FeKK in Ljubljana (SI) and Lago Film Fest (IT).
The resulting six nominated films were publicly announced on February 7th during the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and made available on the Talking Shorts website, accompanied by an interview with the director(s): Yann Gonzalez’s Hideous, Joachim Hérissé’s Skinned, Moritz Geiser’s Why Does Helen Koch Commit Serious Vehicle Theft?, Anna Vasof’s Saving Some Random Insignificant Stories, Mathilde Profit’s Perdre Léna, and Leandro Godinho and Paulo Menezes’s Paradise Europe, showcased to the aspiring critics at this year’s Vilnius Short Film Festival.
For two weeks, online audiences worldwide could watch the films for free and vote for their personal favourite. The votes have now been counted: Paradise Europe, by Leandro Godinho and Paulo Menezes, is the winner of the New Critics and New Audiences Award 2024, awarded by the online audience. The filmmakers will receive a cash prize of €1000.
The 4th edition of the European Workshop for Film Criticism will take place at Filmfest Dresden (April) and Vienna Shorts (May/June). Applications are open to anyone over the age of 18 until February 29th at talkingshorts.com.
Talking Shorts
Talking Shorts is the official outlet of The END — European Network for Film Discourse, which is supported by the Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union.
Founded in 2017 and gradually expanded since, The European Network for Film Discourse now consists of six unique and diverse European film festivals—Filmfest Dresden (DE), Vienna Shorts (AT), Lago Film Fest (IT), Kortfilmfestival Leuven (BE), FeKK Ljubljana Short Film Festival (SI) and Vilnius Short Film Festival (LT). The network’s main purpose is to promote critical film discourse by and for a younger generation and to familiarise new audiences with a flourishing European film landscape.
The results of the first three workshops, organised in tandem during Filmfest Dresden and Vienna Shorts (Spring Edition), Lago Film Fest and FeKK (Summer Edition), and Kortfilmfestival Leuven and Vilnius Short Film Festival (Winter Edition), are available under the Workshops tab on Talking Shorts.