The 2025 edition of Kinemastik International Short Film Festival (KISFF) takes place this weekend (July 25 – 26 2025) in The Garden of Rest, Floriana (aka Msida Bastion Cemetery). This is the last year in which the festival will be held at this location – it will move to a new venue in 2026.
The Kinemastik film festival has been running continuously for 21 years, with films showing even during the Covid-19 pandemic. A collective and non-profit NGO, Kinemastik has carved a niche out for itself, bringing independent film, music, visual arts and publishing to an established audience that they have nurtured since 2004.
Two nights of award-winning short films, both international and Maltese will be in competition on the Main Screen, with award-winning films selected from festivals that take place in Winterthur (CH), Clermont Ferrand (FR), Rotterdam, Berlin, Leipzig, London, Locarno and Sarajevo, to name a few, as well as several Maltese entries (festival program director Emma Mattei).
Over the course of the two evenings, the audience will be able to enjoy approximately 25 short films on a single screen, ranging from animation to documentary and hybrid films in which two genres are blended in a single narrative.
Tunggang langgang (Afterlives), an Indonesian short by internationally-renowned Indonesian artist, cultural studies scholar and filmmaker Timoteus Anggawan Kusno also appears in the programme. “It’s a good example of a hybrid film, a genre that is part documentary and part experimental which become very on trend in recent years,” says Mattei.
What distinguishes [this director’s works] are the empowering attitude and the breathtaking aesthetics he employs to re-interpret in different media the cultural traditions passed on in his homeland. With “Afterlives”, he delivers another unequivocal reckoning with the representations of history shaped by colonial annexation. The opening sequence is already a declaration: On the soundtrack we hear screaming, in which both pain and its liberating relief are manifest and united. On screen we see an explosion of colours: Jathilan, a ritual Javanese war game, is being performed. Men are dancing on horses made of plaited bamboo until they fall into a trance or the evil spirits are driven away.
The impressive precision of the editing to tribal trance music by Setabuhan makes the colonialist archive images expose themselves – and fade. Those of (dance) performances in which the Javan tiger, killed multiple times in historic rituals, is symbolically reanimated come to the fore. In the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, it now guards – in the shape of a re-interpreted colonial sculpture – the empty frames that once gave (representative) power to the governors-general of the Dutch East Indies.
“Recent years have shown strong trends towards representing a plurality of voices, empowering, empowering communities in places all around the world. This has been changing the landscape of the short films we show – and it’s even being argued that there’s a risk that European and North American films risk being overlooked as a result,” says co-founder and programmer Emma Mattei.
“Other popular themes include concern for the environment and second generational trauma, telling the stories of people who have grown up in the shadow of unspeakable circumstances.”
Another short in the line-up is Ashes of Roses (US) directed by Sasha Waters with sound design by Kevin T. Allen and performance cameos by filmmakers Roger Beebe and Jason Livingston. This movie is about loving things that are embarrassing and people who are inappropriate. It’s an essay film reflection on popular trash; football parties; older men; adolescent desire and the outrageous yet mundane humiliations of being a teenage girl in the 1980s.
The full programme will only be released one day before the festival begins.
“The line-up is diverse, the idea is always that the audience will love some and be less keen on others. That’s great – it’s what gets people talking!” Mattei continues. “Watching film, where possible, should be a collective act not a solitary one, it’s conducive to people gathering.”
“The Maltese films we have selected tend to be in the more experimental side of the programme,” she adds. “You can’t have a good career here as a filmmaker, you can work in the commercial field, providing services. We do not have an indigenous film culture, but developing your voice in shorts is the best way to become a good film-maker. Kinemastik has been a place for emerging filmmakers to show more daring work, and we aim to continue to provide this autonomous space.”
“Local films are often made with zero budget, but show vision, voice and insight, and that’s actually much more interesting that films that are more accomplished but lack originality. Some illustrate how all you need is an iphone which gives budding directors real freedom.”
And this aligns with the festival’s long-standing sense of authenticity and honesty. “We keep the prices as low as possible so we can welcome everyone,” smiles Mattei.
The festival jury consists of Teresa Busuttil, a Maltese-Australian artist who works across sculpture and moving image to blend stories, histories and fantasy; Adrian Camilleri, a Maltese filmmaker, anthropologist, and artist whose work moves fluidly between ethnographic observation and poetic experimentation; and Chelsea Muscat a Gozitan writer, director and photographer person based in New York, whose films delve into the ‘intricate dance of human relationships’ and who makes everyday moments into something extraordinary.
Tickets (€18:00 per night) are limited so prebooking on-line is essential.
Doors open at 19:00pm.
The programme includes 19:30 Sundowner set; 21:00 – 23:00 Film Screenings; 23:00 until late – live and D sets. See more at www.kinemastik.org
Kinemastik is supported by Arts Council Malta through the Investment in Cultural Organisations Fund. Kinemastik has long-standing support from NGO Din L-Art Ħelwa, as well as sponsors AP Valletta Architects, ALDO, Marks & Spencer, Valletta Vintage, who support the festival each year.
