La Guarimba International Film Festival was first hosted in 2013 in Amantea, Calabria, Italy.
La Guarimba International Film Festival is an annual international film festival held in Amantea, Calabria, Italy in collaboration with UNICEF that showcases fiction, animation, documentary, experimental film and music video short films.
The festival was inaugurated in 2013.
History La Guarimba International Film Festival was established by filmmaker Giulio Vita and illustrator Sara Fratini in Amantea, Calabria.
The first festival was held in August 2013. The opening ceremony took place at the Arena Sicoli, an open-air cinema that had been closed for several years and was renovated for the festival with the help of local residents and the venue's owners.
From 2014 to 2020, the festival was held at La Grotta Park in Amantea. After part of the grotto walls collapsed in early 2021, the site was declared unsafe, prompting organizers to move the 2021 event to a temporary venue. In late 2021, the La Guarimba Cultural Association acquired a property known as Il Terrenito in Central Amantea, which became the festival's permanent venue in 2022. Organizers
The festival was founded by Giulio Vita, Sara Fratini, and two members of the Spanish film collective El Tornillo de Klaus — Pablo Cristóbal and Alicia Victoria Palacios Thomas — with the aim of gathering independent artists and audiovisual critics. The idea for the festival originated in Madrid, where Vita had studied cinema and Fratini had studied fine arts. It was there that they met members of the El Tornillo de Klaus collective and worked with them for the launch and development of La Guarimba International Film Festival.
Illustration exhibition
Sara Fratini founded the open-air illustration exhibition Artists for La Guarimba, curated by Giulio Vita and Valeria Weerasinghe. Each year, international illustrators create a festival poster in their style, using the official poster made by Mikel Murillo as their inspiration. The exhibition is open during the festival and in various places along the tour.
Some posters have won awards and the recognition of American Illustration, including Meredith Jansen's in 2020 and Natalya Balnova's in 2015.
Editions
La Guarimba was launched on August 7, 2013, and has taken place each summer since its inaugural edition.
First edition
The first edition of the festival took place 5–10 August, 2013. Of the 303 short films that applied, 10 fiction films, 5 animated films, and 5 documentaries were selected. An exhibition of 30 posters by artists worldwide was also held.
As part of the German project "A Wall is A Screen", several screenings were projected on the walls of buildings in the streets of Amantea. The opening titles for the first edition were produced by TKSH Film Production.
Second edition
The second edition of the festival took place 7–14 August 2014.
For the first time, the festival took place in the La Grotta di Amantea natural park, and a screen was installed on the slopes of the cave.
Third edition
The third edition of the festival took place 7–11 August 2015. This edition drew in more than a thousand people. 30 posters made by artists globally were exhibited.
The American video hosting platform Vimeo was present at the festival to promote Vimeo On Demand. After it, a special program created by Sam Morril was screened.
Fourth edition
The fourth edition of the festival took place 7–11 August 2016. Over 1,300 short films globally participated in the selection. This edition was dedicated to Chinese and Japanese cinema, celebrating 150 years of cultural exchange between Italy and these two countries.
During the festival, the category of La Grotta dei Piccoli (films for children) was introduced, with screenings of animated short films in a space dedicated to children.
Fifth edition
The fifth edition of the festival took place between the 7th and the 11th of August 2017. The theme of this edition was 'Propaganda during the Cold War era'. The program brought together short films of different genres from all major continents. Once again, Vimeo presented its "Vimeo Staff Pick". In addition, a program dedicated to African films was created.
The program also included an exhibition of illustrations, a natural clothing dyeing workshop together with the Fragmentario Collective, and an African dance workshop.
Sixth edition
The sixth edition of the festival took place 7–11 August 2018. 1,500 short films from all over the world took part in the selection, with 68 works in competition divided into the categories fiction, animation, documentary, insomnia (Experimental Films), and La Grotta dei Piccoli.
It also included an exhibition of illustrations, a film residency project, two concerts and a conference day entitled "Young African Filmmakers and the future of African Cinema".
Seventh edition
The seventh edition of the festival took place between the 7th and 11th of August 2019. With more than 1,000 short films participated in the selection of 152 works from 42 countries, in five categories (fiction, animation, documentary, insomnia, and La Grotta dei Piccoli).
The international jury was composed of Jeanette Bonds (United States), founder and director of the GLAS Animation Festival, Éva Katinka Bógnar (Hungary), teacher and animation director, as well as Norma Guevara (France), director of the Women Film Festival Network.
It was launched with a collective cleaning of Amantea's beach in collaboration with the NGO and Parley for the Oceans. In the following days, workshops, concerts, industry conferences, a narration seminar in collaboration with Scuola Holden, photographic exhibitions, and an exhibition of illustrations were organized.
Eighth edition
The eighth edition of the festival took place 7–12 August 2020. In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic which forced the majority of festivals to be held online, La Guarimba held a face-to-face event, with over 3,000 admissions over 6 days.
1,160 short films participated in the selection. 160 works coming from 54 countries worldwide in the usual five categories (fiction, animation, documentary, Insomnia, and La Grotta dei Piccoli) were selected for the competition.
The eighth edition of the festival received the Medal of the Representation from the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, the High Patronage of the European Parliament, the Patronage of the Council of Ministers, and the support of the embassies of the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, the Austrian Cultural Forum, and the Flemish State of Arts.
In February 2020, the municipality of Amantea was dissolved due to fraud and mafia infiltration. This caused the closure of La Grotta Park for a year. Therefore, the association engaged in an urban restoration project, cleaning up the park and restoring the facilities, thus allowing the park to reopen to the public.
Ninth edition The ninth edition of the festival took place 7–12 August 2021. 1,174 short films participated in the selection, with 172 films in competition from 56 countries (5 African countries, 13 Asian, 28 European, 9 American, 1 Oceanic), in the usual five categories: fiction, animation, documentary, experimental, and Children's Films.
The ninth edition received the Medal of Representation from the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, the High Patronage of the European Parliament, the Patronage of the Council of Ministers and the Award of Representation of the Chamber of Deputies. It was sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Culture, the European Commission, the Austrian Cultural Forum, Malta, San Marino, the Flemish State of the Arts, the Polish Institute in Rome, and the embassies in Italy of the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Lithuania, Ireland, Norway, Australia, and Canada.
Due to the collapse of a rocky ridge in the historic center of Amantea which made the Parco La Grotta unusable, the festival was held at an abandoned parking lot which was cleaned and cleared as part of a larger urban renewal project. Two murals by street artists Sara Fratini and Cesáh were created.
Tenth edition The tenth edition of the festival took place 7–12 August 2022.
163 short films were screened, from 54 countries. There were 5 main categories: fiction, animation, documentary, music video, and insomnia (experimental films), as well as a selection of a hundred short films for children and young people. The special program Dance Films! was a category curated by Francheska Rodriguez, who introduced the selection by celebrating the fusion between dance and cinema and recognizing its artistic and narrative richness.
In celebration of its 10th anniversary, it also presented 4 special programs: Indigenous Films, dedicated to 5 Indigenous cultures from 5 continents; a screen for short films from California's GLAS Animation Festival, a partner of La Guarimba; Sláva Ukrayíni!, a screening of Ukrainian movies in support of the directors affected by the Russo-Ukrainian war; and Taiwan Focus which celebrated the Taiwanese independent cinema and hosted the Ambassador of Taiwan, Andrea Sing-Ying Lee, at the Holy See.
Eleventh edition The eleventh edition took place 7–12 August 2023 at Il Terrenito. La Grotta Park, which hosted the previous edition, was closed at the beginning of the year due to unsafe conditions.
This edition received the same rewards as the previous years. Among the 1,246 short films received, 159 films from 45 countries were screened.
There were 5 categories shown in 2023: fiction, animation, documentary, music video, and insomnia (experimental films). Like every year, La Grotta dei Piccoli also presented a selection of a hundred short films for children and young people.
During this edition, some programs were also presented: the short documentary film UNHCR: Rebuilding Ukraine, which showed the humanitarian aid process in Ukraine; the program Stories from Iran during which one of three films from independent filmmakers (including two women) was screened; and the special program titled Feminist Porn.
Twelfth edition The twelfth edition took place 7–12 August 2024, at Il Terrenito.
This edition received the same awards as the previous years. Among the 1,044 short films received, 158 films from 52 countries were screened in five categories: fiction, animation, documentary, music video, and insomnia (experimental films). Like every year, La Grotta dei Piccoli also presented a selection of a hundred short films for children and young people.
Thirteenth edition The thirteenth edition took place 7–12 August 2025, at Il Terrenito.
This edition received the same awards as the previous years. Among the 1,290 short films received, 193 films from 67 countries were screened.
There were 6 categories shown in 2025: fiction, animation, documentary, music video, insomnia (experimental films), and dance. Like every year, La Grotta dei Piccoli also presented a selection of a hundred short films for children and young people.
During this edition, some special programs were also presented: "Serato Animato", an Italian animators' collective curated a program of 15 animated shorts for the final night of the festival. At Grotta dei Piccoli, a program called "Sunday Cinema / Films of Resistance" was screened on the final evening of the festival. This is a collection of short animated films by Haneen Koraz, Nour A-Jawad, and Shorook Darwish. The films were created in collaboration with displaced children in Gaza.
Disputes
Conflict between open-air summer festivals and distributors