Dulce, by Spanish director Ivan Ruiz Flores, is the official winner of the first edition of HAB – HeArtBeats Venice Short Film Festival 2011. Come si dice by Italian director Cristian Benaglio, has also been given an important acknowledgement during the Awards Ceremony, held on Sunday, October 9 – namely the Special Jury Award.

The closing part of the Ceremony hosted a very special intervention by Francis Ford Coppola, who – via videoconference – greeted the HAB’s audience  and gave his personal impression and ratings on the awarded works, too: more specifically, the Maestro appreciated Dulce‘s high-quality script and story, as well as the great acting performance provided by the two children; Come si dice, on the other hand, impressed Mr. Coppola for the great ability in the building of the plot, eventually leading to a highly-effective final – and – once more – for the acting of the two protagonists, too.

Besides that, Mr. Coppola also dialogued with the Ceremony’s moderator and HAB’S coordinator Daniele Biondi about the role of short films on the international cinematographic scene: according to the Maestro, short films represent an extremely important filmic formula, not only for their high usability, but also because the short story – particularly in the American culture – has always been, and still is, the expressive modality chosen by many great authors – and  by Hemingway among others.

But  HAB 2011 wasn’t only a film contest: the event marked its difference from the usual cinematographic festivals – normally focused on the screening of the works – by offering a widely diverse program of meetings and the participation of many personalities, including leading experts from the world of cardiology  (Dr. Antonio Raviele and Dr. Andrea Natale, Prof. A. John Camm and Prof. Douglas P. Zipes) and from that of cinema, too (directors Zanussi, Nunziante, Wieczynski,  a famous sound engineer like Christopher Newman – and most of all Mr. Coppola himself) as well as key  protagonists  of Italian and international culture, such as Russian novelist Nicolai Lilin, Brazilian pianist and composer Marcelo Cesena and Italian rockstar Omar Pedrini.

Italian blockbusters’ director Gennaro Nunziante spoke about the comedy in the Italian cinema, while the intervention by Rafal Wieczynski – the Polish director of Popieluszko – was focused on the cinematographic approach to historical reality. Nicolai Lilin, the author of Siberian Education, held a discussion on the topic “Drama and passion: at the heart of one’s own origin”, while Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi talked about the “real relationship bewteen cinema and audience, which is stronger than that of literature, and capable of embracing the viewer, thus making him a part of a true experience”.

Marcelo Cesena’s concert was highly appreciated: the Brazilian virtuoso pianist performed his own compositions and great interpretations of classical authors, too – from Chopin to Bach – effectively laying the human heart bare through the language of music.

Moreover, the nearby Molino Stucky Hilton Hotel hosted two important technical masterclasses, held by video-editing experts Roberto Zammarchi and Paolo Baccolo, representing the two main competitors on nowadays’ market in this field – namely Apple and Adobe.

“Heart speaks unto heart”: that’s what HAB’s first edition really did: it spoke unto everyone’s heart, gathering personalities and sensibilities, to look at the world with intelligence and depth. Everyone was guided by his own experience and culture, but was also open to meet the others and compare with them, in order to consider what cinema – as well as our own heart – is able to reveal to us.