The Sugarly Sweet Film Festival is a theme festival, at which viewers can watch melodrama and feel-good movies. 9, 10, 11 and 12th of Novembre 2023. It will take place in Schiedam (next to Rotterdam)
Approx. 90 long movies will be shown on 15 historical locations in Schiedam.

The festival can be visited for free. www.suikerzoetfilmfestival.nl
In the last years much work has been done to promote short films too.
Since 2014 a short film competition will be added to the festival.
The challenge lies in showing a short film before a long movie starts.
It’s a unique way of letting people become more familiar with short films.
This short film should last no longer than 4 minutes.
A film jury will be assembled and the winning film will be rewarded with a sum of money.
I’m looking for short films which fit in the sugarly sweet-theme.
Entries close 3 october 2023.

Submit you film on: https://filmfreeway.com/Suikerzoet-be4-Filmfestival

After choosing the film I need a film-file and a video still.
I would prefer it if the chosen film can also be shown as a ‘DCP file’. If there is no DCP file, I can make it by my self.
There will be a jury of the field and the winner gets the “Silver Tear” and also €500,- .
(There will be only one price to be given)
      

The hidden treasure of Sugar Sweet
Silver Tear ode to short film
The short film has its own special place in the Schiedam Film Festival. In general, this genre attracts connoisseurs and connoisseurs. A shame, because they are often innovative eye-openers for a much wider audience. Suikerzoet recognises this importance and underlines it with a competition and the official festival prize for the best short film, the Silver Tear. The trophy will be awarded for the sixth consecutive time during the opening gala, this time on Thursday 17th of November 2022.
The competition now has a field of international allure and with a ditto composition of the jury, which reviews the entries prior to the festival and determines the winner. The prize has the stamp of prestigious. Jan Bekkering, responsible for the programming and promoter of the first hour of the short film within Suikerzoet, has little to do with this kind of superlatives. As a connoisseur and enthusiast pur sang, he is happy with what he calls a unique opportunity: Usually these films are screened in intimate circles for a select group of regular fans. Now we can present them in a kind of pre festival, in beautiful halls on a big screen and automatically reach all those thousands of visitors who come to Schiedam in November. Of course we hope to enthuse and inspire them. Those productions deserve that too. They are often of an unprecedented quality, offer a surprising look at life and its creators, mostly young people from countries all over the world have put their souls and bliss into them.

Challenge
Nearly 20 short films, two of which are out of competition, will take part in this year’s competition for the Silver Tear with the 500 euro prize. The common denominator is that they have a duration of less than four minutes and in that time frame they also put the viewer on another leg. For Jan Bekkering it is always a challenge to complete the programming. Sometimes it is easier to tell an enormous story than to evoke a feeling in a limited timeframe. A maximum length of four minutes is of course very short, so you quickly end up with animated films. I look for the productions that move you, hold up a mirror to you, give you a smile of recognition. Sugar-sweet has been showing short films since 2008, but only since 2014 in its current form. Not only the audience, but also the participants and the organisers of the festival like it. Jan Bekkering: Already at the first meeting between Edwin Spek and me, I did a project at the Grafisch Lyceum in Rotterdam where he works, it was clear to us that we had to do something with our shared love for the short film. It then takes a while to find the best formula. Apart from the difference in genre, it’s not too easy in terms of theme either. The subject ‘Sugar Sweet’ is difficult to convey to the international world of short film. I myself don’t like ‘cute’ much either. I prefer the melodramatic. You can do something with it in terms of content. But of course that’s also one side of Sugar Sweet.