Short films on trees

An open-air cinema with a difference: Prize winners at the international short film festival Vienna Shorts are now being awarded trees instead of trophies. The award winners’ short films can be streamed directly onto smartphones by scanning a QR code attached to the trees.

It is a statement for climate protection and sustainability in equal measure: the 2023 edition of the Vienna Shorts film festival was the first to award “green trophies” in the form of trees. Working in cooperation with the Vienna City Garden Directorate, ten new trees are now planted in a wide variety of places – in streets, parks and cemeteries – to mark the award ceremony. Each individual tree is dedicated to a winner of the international short film festival. A plaque is attached to each tree with information about the tree species, the film and the category in which it won a prize. The award-winning short films can also be streamed in the vicinity of the tree by means of a QR code, making them accessible to a wider audience. This is a unique opportunity because these are films that can otherwise only be seen at international festivals.

At the award ceremony in 2024, ten trees will once again be dedicated to the winners and planted in the wake of the ceremony. A map of Vienna with information about the films and locations can be found on the Vienna Shorts website: www.viennashorts.com/festival/baeume. The intention is to create a cinematic tree walk through the city in the years to come.

The Vienna Shorts short film festival celebrated its 20th edition in 2023. The high-profile festival has an excellent international network and is renowned for the high quality of its entries, not least because winning films in individual categories are automatically nominated for the Oscars®, the European Film Awards or the BAFTA Film Awards. In 2022, Vienna Shorts also became the first festival in Vienna to be organized as a certified green event and bear the Austrian Ecolabel.