43a Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema
Pesaro Film Festival
Teatro Sperimentale, Cinema Astra e Piazza del Popolo
June 24 – July 2, 2007
Founded in Pesaro in 1965 by Lino Miccichè and Bruno Torri, the Pesaro Film Festival has been
under the artistic direction of Giovanni Spagnoletti since 2000. Besides being known for its copious and original publications, the festival has also become synonymous with discoveries,
showcases of emerging film industries and special events.
The festival’s 43rd edition will offer:
Contemporary Italian-American cinema
In the past 15 years, last names “ending with vowels” (of Italian origin) have been dominating
the credits of US films, both commercial and independent. Often, these people come from
middle-class, well-educated families, work in mainstream cinema and are rather far from the
traditional idea of the children of immigrants of the past we’re familiar with, and that the Italians abroad have shown us have become antiquated. They often do not identify with ItalianAmerican culture, even though at times, at least in film, they evoke it or use it to get a better
sense of their traditions, which recently dominated the media with the television series The Sopranos.
This broad retrospective, organized in collaboration with the Calandra Institute of New York,
aims to offer the most interesting and exhaustive possible showcase of this “Italianism” in the
US, focusing above all on independent films. Looking back from a distance at the great filmmakers of the 1970s – such as Coppola, Scorsese and De Palma – the festival would like to present filmmakers, some of whom are not very well known, whose work is nevertheless connected by a subtle yet common thread. These include Richard LaGravanese, George Gallo,
Michael Corrente, Frank Rainone, Tiffanie De Bartolo, Raymond De Felitta, Tom DiCillo, Tony Vitale, as well as actor-directors Robert De Niro, Vincent Gallo, Danny DeVito, Gary Sinise, John
Turturro, Steve Buscemi and Stanley Tucci. Naturally, we will also include a significant number
of short films and documentaries that round out and enrich the selection.
There will also be a focus on Emanuele Crialese and Saverio Costanzo, who at the beginning
of their already successful careers took their first professional steps as immigrants in New York.
The section will be accompanied by an in-depth Marsilio publication, a photography exhibit
by Valerio Bispuri on New York’s Little Italy and an international daylong conference in collaboration with AltreItalie (www.altreitalie.it) of filmmakers, critics and scholars.
Cinema in the Square
Eight evening, open-air screenings in Pesaro’s historic main square. The films are all national
premieres and, as is Pesaro tradition, unite quality and broad audience appeal. After the previous successful editions, the public will once again present their favorite film of the section
with the Audience Award.
21st Special Event: Luigi Comencini
The Pesaro Film Festival shares its grief with the family of Luigi Comencini and with all of Italian
cinema for the recent loss of one of the country’s greatest directors. Thus, the imminent 21st
Special Event, a complete retrospective we have been organizing for some time on Comencini’s work in collaboration with the Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di CinematografiaCineteca Nazionale will also be an emotional tribute to the man and the artist. The event is organized by Adriano Aprà of the Pesaro Film Festival and Laura Argento and Sergio Toffetti of
the Cineteca Nazionale.
The retrospective includes:
- all of Luigi Comencini’s television and cinema works;
- a conference held by scholars, collaborators and the Comencini family (Saturday, July
1, Cinema Astra);
- the book Luigi Comencini. Il cinema e i film, edited by Adriano Aprà, with essays that
speak on the director’s artistic themes in general and many of his films in particular, written specifically on the occasion of the retrospective;
- a photographic catalogue of his films, published by the Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale and edited by Domenico Monetti and Luca
Pallanch;
- and an exhibit and corresponding catalogue, curated by Adriano Aprà and Piero Berengo Gardin, of Comencini’s work as a photojournalist for the weekly newspaper
Tempo from 1940-41.
Pesaro Nuovo Cinema Competition – Lino Miccichè Award
After the success of the past several years, the competition section will continue with a selection of films from throughout the world in search of new cinema. The award is dedicated to the
memory of festival co-founder Lino Miccichè.
In 2006, the jury, made up of Roberto Silvestri, Jasmine Trinca and Paolo Virzì, awarded the
prize ex aequo to Sehnsucht by Germany’s Valeska Grisebach and A Short Film About the Indio Nacional by Filipino director Raya Martin.
Ivan Zulueta
With support from the Instituto Cervantes and in collaboration with Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa, Filmoteca Española e TVE, the festival is presenting a retrospective on one of Spain’s most
eccentric and controversial filmmakers, director of the most renowned ‘damned’ film in the
country’s film history: Arrebato 1979, 35mm (105’). This will also be an opportunity to see, for the
first time in Italy, along with his debut feature Un, dos, tres, al escondite Inglès (1969), his vast
number of short films as well: La Fortuna de los Irureta (1964), Agata (1966), Ida y Vuelta (1967),
Ultimo Grito (1968), Kinkong (1971), Frank Stein (1972), Masaje (1972), Roma-Brescia-Cannes
(1974), Mi Ego está en Babia (1975), Aquarium (1975), Complementos (1976), Fiesta (1976), A
Malgam A (1976), El Mensaje es Facial (1976), Leo es Pardo (1976), Tea For Two (1978), La
Taquillera (1978), Parpados (1989), and Ritesti (1992).
There will also be an exhibit of his important work in film graphics, for which he became renowned through Spain, creating posters for, among others, Pedro Almodóvar’s first films and
Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana.
euro.doc
The signing of the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957 marked the beginning of the European
Union. On the occasion of the Treaty’s 50th anniversary, the festival offers a journey to the
edges of a united Europe. Following the film and video cameras of European directors, we will
discover these worlds at the fringes, both within and without the heart of Europe itself, which
seem to escape and resist economic and political treaties. From a neighborhood in outskirts of
Barcelona to the faraway peninsula of Yamal, these cultures lay claim to their diversity and irreducibility.
Selected titles include: Can Tunis by José González Morandi & Paco Toledo (Spain, 2006),
Ha’bitchonim – HotHouse by Shimon Dotan (Israel, 2006), Forsaken Paths by Ruya Arzu Köksal
(Turkey, 2006), Love and Broken Glass by Suvi Andrea Helminen (Denmark, 2006) and JaptikChese (Yaptik-Hasse) by Edgar Bartenev (Russia, 2006).
Spaziovideo
Spaziovideo will feature works of the Proposte Video and Documentando sections, selected
from among the submissions the festival receives and those artists interested in searching for
and debating the electronic image – in its experimental and low budget form – that the festival promotes with Q&As and debates.
Pesaro a Roma
As part of the “I grandi festival” (“The Great Festivals”) event at the outdoor cinema of Rome’s
Piazza Vittorio, for the fourth consecutive year “Pesaro a Roma” (July 4-8, 2007) will present an
exhaustive selection of the festival’s various sections. In collaboration with AGIS and ANEC,
several special events will be organized with the directors and actors of the selected films.