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A still from Guillaume Colin’s film, “Babatoura,” from Canada.THE Canberra Short Film Festival will be back again live tomorrow (November 10) for 16 nights of contemporary short films, music videos and animations from Canberra, Australia and around the world.

The opening night at Dendy Cinemas features no fewer than 14 films.

According to festival director John Frohlich, this year the festival received more than 600 films across the 10 competition categories, amazing enough during a pandemic but also, he thought, a reflection of the strong reputation the festival had developed both in Australia and internationally.

Sifting through the entries to select 164 films, coming from 28 countries, Frohlich and his team developed 10 thematic strands, including “Fright Night”, “The Politics of Sexuality and Gender”, “Future worlds”, “First Nations Stories” and “Iranian Nights”, the latter in response to the volume and quality of entries from Iran in recent years.

A new experimental film category will be the focus of a special screening night at PhotoAccess.

“One of the best aspects of the CSFF screenings are the post film panel discussions with filmmaker and other special guests,” Frohlich said, adding that another highlight would be the “Filmmaker Network” event where local filmmakers can meet and mingle with their peers from interstate.

Canberra Short Film Festival 2021, Dendy Cinemas, Smith’s Alternative and some suburban locations, November 10-25. Full program here