About festival

Riga International Short Film Festival 2ANNAS 2023 will take place for the 27th time and as usual offers original, innovative, challenging, socially active short films and medium-length films to viewers. 2ANNAS exists in a context in which the short-film format is not only a step to the first full-scale work but also a deliberate, consistent choice resulting in high-quality art. Similarly, the festival is known as crazy parties in unaccustomed places, a free atmosphere, and creative manifestations, not only in the form of cinema.

2ANNAS offers four tender programs each year: the International Short Film Competition, the Baltic Short Film Competition, the International Small Film Contest, and the competition for films for children and young people.

Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, in 2023 the festival will take place on-site and online.

Since 2013, the festival has also developed thematic out-of-competition programs. Including 3-year cycles of focus programs aimed at encouraging public discussion on selected focus topics.

Every three years, the cycle of program topics is changed and its purpose is to stimulate discussion in society about the selected focus topics and the focus cycle of 2023 - 2025 has been chosen "Body and flesh" (2023), "Mind" (2024) and "Symbiosis" ( 2025).

At the 2023 festival, we will focus on the body mentioned in the approach of the phenomenological traditions, where the established distinction between the body (Körper) and the flesh (Leib) explains and allows us to combine both the understanding of the body as an externally observable thing and the understanding of the body as a subjectively experienced body. We have chosen this distinction in the focus theme of the festival also in order to invite the viewer to look for as many different ways as possible to look at their own body.

In the focus programs, we will try to look at the limits of the human body, the senses, and we will also touch on such a topical topic as - the body and political power, Russia's war in Ukraine, abortion bans in Poland and America, the crisis caused by COVID19 and that all raises the question - can the body belong to someone else? What is our body?

Alongside the festival, “2ANNAS” also holds open discussions between film viewers and creators, participates in a variety of cultural events, such as “Positivus”, the international music festival “Laba Daba, talk festival LAMP, contemporary culture forum “White Night”, etc., and go on tour every year, showing the most vivid works in different places of Latvia from programs of previous years of the festival.