Elche Fantasy Film Festival leadership, through FantaElxI, sent representatives to Turin to visit mufant, the Museum of Fantasy. There they announced the genre competition that Elche has sustained for more than a decade. The festival’s manager and deputy manager, Fran Mateu and Mario Paul Martinez, were welcomed to this special weekend event in the Italian museum dedicated to fantasy. They presented several Spanish short films and offered a look at the journey of the festival as well as a preview of the upcoming edition. The eleventh edition is scheduled to run from 9 to 25 November.
Mateu and Martínez recounted the festival’s history, detailing the range of activities and the people involved. They outlined the cinematographic categories, the partners and participants from the cinematic world, and the parallel projects that accompany the festival. They highlighted the International Fantasy Genre, Audiovisual, and International Congress on New Technologies, which are integral parts of the event and draw more than fifty researchers from around the world each year.
short films
The FantaElxI organizers invite public judgment on the entries. Below is a selection of short films that have earned awards at this festival, offering a snapshot of the state of fantasy cinema from Spain. Works such as Poltergeist (Alvaro Vicario), Give Give (Paul Urkijo), Way Back (Carlos Salgado), Polvotron 500 (Silvia Conesa), and 9 Steps (Marisa Crespo and Moises Romera) also gained recognition at other major fantasy festivals, including Sitges International Film Festival and Hard:Line Film Festival.
Looking ahead to the next edition, the event aims to bridge cinema with gaming, literature, and graphic storytelling. Attendees can expect screenings that range from screen-to-screen adaptations to new forms of multimedia storytelling, with discussions that cover contemporary directions and emerging trends in the genre. For those who wish to contribute, organizers explained how creators can participate in the Festival and the Congress, inviting a broader community to take part in this cross-disciplinary celebration of cinema and fantasy, as noted by the organizers (citation: FantaElxI organizers).