The BREEDBEELD Short Film festival was born in 2009 as CinéPublic, a bi-annual event for upcoming filmmakers. Since 2017 it is organised every year and in 2018 the festival was renamed to the BREEDBEELD Short Film Festival.

Focussing on the broader field of short film features, the annual festival program allows for works of fiction and documentary, as well as animated and experimental features, acknowledging the fact that despite an abundance of available talent, the public platform for short features remains limited, definitely so in Antwerp. Convinced that film festivals are breeding grounds for novel ideas and concepts and should always champion exchanges within their respective field of interest, BREEDBEELD decided to combine forces and invited different short film initiatives in Antwerp to present their own program, adjacent to the festival’s competition. All films are contemporary Belgian productions and trough them the different voices of the short film initiatives in the city are represented within one event.

To be eligible for the competition, films must be made without support from the VAF, Screen Flanders or any production company. In this way, the BREEDBEELD Short Film Festival’s aim is to support and represent upcoming filmmakers whose work may not have been screened at major film festivals.

Situating itself within Antwerp’s broader cultural network, the festival also hosts a slew of additional events, ranging from more evident fare such as an opening and closing party, to a decidedly specialised round table discussion that allows for an in-depth probing into the challenges facing the contemporary (aspiring) short film director. Connecting these filmmakers to more matured colleagues, the festival hosts the initiative of multiple masterclasses and workshops combined with various specials.