The eighth edition of Inte Cinema Festival has closed, and its awards have been given. Across four competitive categories, the jury recognised work from four different countries — a spread that, in a festival that charges nothing to enter, is exactly the point. Here are the films that won, and the films that came within reach of them.
Best Fiction — The Hours Between
The Best Fiction trophy and its $1,000 award went to Cristina Zar of Argentina for The Hours Between, a quiet, exactingly controlled drama that the jury described as the film they could not stop thinking about after the room had emptied. It is a work of small gestures and large silences — the kind of fiction that trusts an audience to lean in. Zar was present in Rome for the screening, and the conversation that followed her film ran long past its allotted time.
The Fiction runner-up certificate went to Zhana Gali of Kazakhstan for Salt and Stone, a stark and beautifully shot piece that the jury felt announced a filmmaker to watch.
Best Documentary — River Memory
The Best Documentary award went to Lebohang Moeketsi of South Africa for River Memory, a patient, generous portrait of a community bound to a river and to the memory the water carries. It is the kind of film — rooted in a specific place, made with evident trust between filmmaker and subject — that our festival exists to find, and that a submission fee might well have kept from ever reaching us.
Four trophies, four countries. In a festival that charges nothing to enter, that spread is not an accident — it is the entire point.
The Documentary runner-up was Kofi Mensah of Ghana for The Last Shepherd, a spare and moving study of a vanishing way of life.
Best Animation — Paper Threads
The Best Animation trophy went to Tim Wickens of the United Kingdom for Paper Threads, a handcrafted, tactile piece whose technique drew audible admiration in the room. The jury praised the film's refusal to let its craft become mere spectacle — every choice, they noted, served the story rather than showing off.
Best Experimental — Refraction
The Best Experimental award went to Alaleh Izadi, working between Iran and Germany, for Refraction — a film built from light and duration that used the medium itself as its subject. It was, the jury said, precisely the kind of work the experimental category exists to honour: strange because it needed to be, not because it wanted to seem so.
A festival of twenty-eight countries
Beyond the winners, the eighth edition drew selected films from twenty-eight countries — a breadth we take real pride in, because it is the direct result of the festival's open, international reach. Every film in the selection reached a Roman audience and, in our soirées, a real conversation. The trophies went to four filmmakers. The festival, we would argue, belonged to all of them.
Our congratulations to every selected filmmaker of the eighth edition, and our thanks to the audiences of Rome who made the evenings what they were. The 9th Edition is now open for submissions on FilmFreeway.
Inte Cinema Festival is an independent short film festival and cultural association based in Rome. Submissions for the 9th Edition are open now on FilmFreeway.