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Nicolas Winding Refn and Piccolo America – who run both Rome’s largest outdoor film festival and Europe’s first 24-hour cinema – want to see your short films.
The second edition of Fondazione Piccolo America’s Corto Condorello, a short film festival for filmmakers under 35 from around the world, will return to Rome’s Cinema Troisi from December 11-13.
Applications for all competitions are open on November 6th, directly through FilmFreeway, with an application fee of 10 euro per short. Films cannot be longer than 20 minutes, including end credits, and must be completed on or after January 1, 2025, and made by directors born on or after January 1, 1992. No premiere status is required: films that have already been screened at other festivals, distributed, or available online are also eligible.
The festival will announce selected films at the end of November.
Nicolas Winding Refn will be the chairman of the international jury, and his stage with NWR will be joined by MUBI, the partner of the festival since the first edition. Among the films in competition, the jury will award the Golden Condorello and the audience will award the Silver Condorello; the winners of both prizes will receive a one-year distribution contract on the Mubi platform. Films that go out of competition compete for the Bronze Condorello, awarded by the audience, which includes a 500 euro voucher for the historic Bar San Calisto in Trastevere.
Along with jury president Nicolas Winding Refn, judges include Chiara Costa, head of programs at Fondazione Prada; director Abel Ferrara; James Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade; fashion model and actress Laura Grassi; Demi Demitro and Baby Pottersmith from the band The Velveteers; and Elias Rønnenfelt, Iceage frontman.
The first edition in November 2024 attracted 2,000 entries from 86 countries. The international jury of the first edition, chaired by Paolo Sorrentino and composed of Willem Dafoe, Carla Bruni, Radu Mihăileanu, Debra Winger and Jan Komasa, received “Majonezë” by Giulia Grandinetti in the official competition; the film went on to win the Grand Prix at the Brussels Short Film Festival and the Grand Jury Prize at AFI Fest in Los Angeles, awards that qualified it for the 2026 Oscars.
New for 2026, the Pink Condorello is an online audience award created in partnership with byNWR and reserved for films in competition that the directors choose to publish on stage. byNWR users will decide the award through an online vote. Online voting will open when films are announced through December 12. The winner will remain available on byNWR for one year.
Go to the festival website for all the details.
