Betting on Shorts (BoSs) was first organized as a one-off event at the ICA as part of the European Summer School 2005, “Playtime!”, which was run by Ricarda Vidal and Louise Höjer (both London Consortium students at the time). As the event proved popular we developed it into an annual competition. A collaboration with a Berlin-based artist group in 2006 led to the creation of “More than a Eurovision of Shortfilm” in 2007, an annual short film festival/competition which brings together cutting-edge venues and film festivals across and beyond Europe in a unique simultaneous screening.
Each year a themed open call for submissions is posted worldwide. 10 – 15 shorts of any genre are selected to take part in the competition, which is screened simultaneously in all participating cities. A local winner is chosen by a jury of critics, curators and other film professionals in each city. Once all juries have compared their results the overall winner is awarded glory, fame and cash. So the audience can have some fun as well, we invite everyone to bet on which film will win. Bets must be placed before the screening. Trailers of all participating films are screened in all participating venues and on the website a week in advance of the competition. Those who have placed their bet well, can win cinema tickets, dvds, books and the like.
BoSs is now run by Ricarda, Irini Marinaki, Konstantinos Stefanis and Sarah Sparkes. Besides “More than a Eurovision” we also operate a large archive of short films and curate programmes for galleries, pubs, museums, events etc.
For the European Summer School 2010 we have chosen to show the programme of the first pan-European collaboration, “Mad or Bad”, which was originally screened on 28 November 2007 at the ICA in London and simultaneously in Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Istanbul, Maribor, Novi Sad, Paris, Poznan and Rostov-on-Don. Only four of the ten juries managed to agree on the same film as best film. ‘Bet’ which film this was and win a small prize. Betting will take place immediately after the screening and winners will be announced soon after!
More details about the betting procedure will be announced on the day of the screening.
