Program

BIF&ST 2013

The 4th edition of Bif&st-Bari International Film Festival (the 5th considering the 2009 pilot edition, “For Italian cinema”) – under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano – will take place in Bari (Apulia, Italy) from Saturday March 16 to Saturday March 23, 2013, promoted by Apulia Region – headed by Nichi Vendola – through the Councillor to the Mediterranean Area, Culture and Tourism Silvia Godelli. Bif&st is organized by Apulia Film Commission, chaired by Antonella Gaeta and directed by Silvio Maselli, with the collaboration of University of Bari.

Ettore Scola is president of Bif&st, created and directed by Felice Laudadio. Members of the direction Committee are Angelo Ceglie, Enrico Magrelli, Fiammetta Profili and Marco Spagnoli.

Bif&st – to be held in the Petruzzelli Theatre and in other 10 film theatres in Bari – benefits from the key collaboration of Teche RAI archive, directed by Barbara Scaramucci, of Cineteca Nazionale of Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, directed by Enrico Magrelli, and of Istituto Luce Cinecittà with its managing director Roberto Cicutto.

Media partners: La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, La Repubblica, Corriere del Mezzogiorno.

Program outline

• The official opening of Bif&st 2013 will take place Saturday March 16th at the Petruzzelli Theatre, with the Italian absolute premiere of a film of great artistic and entertainment appeal. The theatre will also host, from March 17 to 22, six other Premieres out of competition.
•  The closing night on Saturday March 23^rd, again at Petruzzelli Theatre, with the awards ceremony and a performance by actress and singer Lina Sastri.
• The Fellini Awards for Cinematic Excellence will be assigned – in the evenings at Petruzzelli Theatre – to several great personalities of Italian and international cinema, who will also give Cinema Lessons.
• The competitive section “International Panorama” will present 10-12 international feature films produced in the past year, Italian premieres, selected also among those awarded with the Fipresci Prize in international festivals of 2012 and early 2013.  An audience jury, with 50 members headed by Ulrich Felsberg, the long time producer of Wim Wenders’ and Ken Loach’s films, will give the Bif&st Audience International Award to the best film in competition, to the best leading actress and the best leading actor.
• The competitive section ItaliaFilmFest will present the best 12 Italian feature films, selected among those theatrically released or presented at Italian or international festivals between March 9, 2012 and March 1, 2013. With the motto “International film critics judge Italian cinema”, a jury chaired by Michel Ciment with four other influential foreign film critics of FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) will give the following prizes: Mario Monicelli Award for the director of the best film; Franco Cristaldi Award for the best producer; Tonino Guerra Award for the best screenplay;
  Anna Magnani Award for the best leading actress;
  Vittorio Gassman Award for the best leading actor; Ennio Morricone Award for the best music score composer; Giuseppe Rotunno Award for the best cinematographer; Dante Ferretti Award for the best art director; Roberto Perpignani Award for the best editor; Piero Tosi Award for the best costume designer.
• A jury of three film critics and scholars, Jean Gili (president), Francesco Alò and Carlo di Carlo, will give the Francesco Laudadio First or Second Film Award to a  film in a competition of 10-12 films selected among those theatrically released or presented at Italian or international festivals between March 1, 2012 and March 1, 2013. Also Italian films never screened before the festival dates will be eligible.
• An audience jury, with 30 members chaired by producer and director Pippo Mezzapesa, will give the Vittorio De Seta Award for the best documentary director. All documentaries in competition must be absolute premieres for Italy until Bif&st dates. In this section very few documentaries, Italian premieres or not, will be included out of competition, and they will be part of the Special Events of Bif&st 2013. 
• The non-competitive section Cinema On Cinema will present some documentaries focusing on film directors, actors, leading figures of our cinema: a reflection on cinema with cinema images.
• Bif&st for schools is a section especially designed for high school students, with two thematic overviews: one dedicated to “Mafia and anti-mafia”, and one to “The protagonists”. Both cycles will be organized by the social cooperative “I bambini di Truffaut”.

Short Films: Arcipelago at Bif&st

A significant novelty of 2013 edition: Bif&st will host a historical event dedicated to short films, which was held in Rome for 20 years: ARCIPELAGO – International Festival of Short Films and New Images, directed by Stefano Martina.

The collaboration with Bif&st launches a new phase – announced in June 2012 during Arcipelago’s 20^th edition – the last “standard” one – in the long life of this Roman event created in 1992. Today Arcipelago aims to an innovative formula of widespread and extended festival, in terms of time and place. In particular, Arcipelago brings to Bari its most prestigious segment, which has always been a fertile place for talent scouting: “ConCorto – National Competition of Short Films”. An autonomous and independent Bif&st section (taking the place of the former ItaliaFilmFest/Short Films section), ConCorto will present only Italian short films, selected by Stefano Martina with the collaboration of Giuliana La Volpe. The short films will have their Italian absolute premiere in Bari and will compete for the Michelangelo Antonioni Award for the director of the best short film, chosen by a jury of 30 audience members chaired by film director and screenwriter Daniele Vicari. The jury may also give a special mention.

Tribute and Fellini Award for artistic excellence to Adriano Celentano

A tribute will be dedicated to one of the greatest figures of Italian entertainment and music scene, Adriano Celentano, who is also a film director and actor. Six of his films will be presented, and he will receive the Fellini Award for artistic excellence with the following motivation:

«Adriano Celentano’s artistic career spans over half a century of Italian entertainment and cultural history. From cinema to all aspects of music, from theatre stages of popular events such as Sanremo music festival to television, from his record company to talent scouting, Celentano is a great protagonist, a pioneer, a cultural and problematic innovator. But he is also a nonconforming activist, who has used the instruments of his poetry and of his very personal political awareness to deeply revolutionize the cultural scene, which has often lead him to face censorship or irritated silences. A “troublesome” artist, amusing and amused, with an indisputable charisma – since his striking role in La dolce vita by Federico Fellini – which made him an “icon” of a different way of doing and directing entertainment shows, not only in Italy, without ever surrendering to the lure of an easy success. The many lives of Adriano Celentano, his restless battles for a fairer and more equal society, for more livable cities, against war, death penalty, world hunger and for the right to free information – battles which he always personally undertook, often in solitude – have made him a beloved and esteemed figure. Actor, film director, composer, singer, musician, polemicist, Celentano always expresses in all fields his far-sighted and anti-conformist point of view, while being able to conquer large audiences with his communicative drive. For these reasons, and for many others which would require an essay about him in a Umberto Eco-style, and therefore for his talent, his charisma, his sense of humour, his art, but also for his ethics, his civil passion and his being a “free man” (quoting the title of a famous song of his), Bif&st 2013 honors Adriano Celentano with the Fellini Award for artistic excellence».

Festivals in the festival

Alberto Sordi Festival – Waiting for Bif&st 2013 

Bif&st 2013 will introduce a new event, Waiting for Bif&st, starting on March 1^st with the Alberto Sordi Festival, a retrospective of 48 films directed by and starring the great actor (who died on February 24, 2003), closing on March 27^th. The event will also include 27 audiovisual programs for a total of 34 hours, selected in the huge cultural heritage of Teche RAI archive.

The Alberto Sordi Festival will take place in collaboration with the Foundation named after him, chaired by Giorgio Assumma, and will host a meeting on “The other Alberto Sordi”, a not so known Sordi but equally important because of all the many charities and patronages he promoted with extraordinary discretion. The Sordi Festival will intersect with two films -– Lo sceicco bianco and I vitelloni – the Federico Fellini festival.

A Cinema Lesson by Ettore Scola will be dedicated to the acting art of Alberto Sordi. Scola directed him in several films and was a long time collaborator of Sordi since he was very young.

Festival Federico Fellini

The official poster of Bif&st 2013 is a drawing by Ettore Scola, with the profile of Federico Fellini. To this great director – on the occasion of the 20^th anniversary of his death – will be dedicated the Federico Fellini Festival, presenting a complete retrospective of his 24 films together with 36 audiovisual materials, for a total of 27 hours, selected in the rich Teche Rai archive, and a conference on “Fellini and dream” curated by Fiammetta Profili. Other audiovisual materials on Fellini and his work, which are arriving to us from many sources, will be added to the event.

The poster of the exhibition “The drawings of Federico Fellini from the Book of dreams” – curated by Francesca Fabbri Fellini – is a wishing well image created in August 1993 by Ingmar Bergman, at the time of the illness which lead Fellini to his death on October 31^st of the same year.

Dante Ferretti/Francesca Lo Schiavo Festival

A third event – presenting about thirty films – will be dedicated to the recipients of 3 Academy Awards ® (for a total of 6 statuettes, besides 11 nominations for both): art director Dante Ferretti, who has worked with Pasolini, Ferreri, Comencini, Scola, Scorsese; and set decorator Francesca Lo Schiavo. The work of Ferretti and Lo Schiavo will intersect the Fellini Festival with five of the latest films directed by the great maestro from Rimini (Prova d’orchestra, La città delle donne, E la nave va, Ginger e Fred, La voce della luna).

Acting profession

Two relevant initiatives will be dedicated to art of acting during Bif&st 2013.

The first one will take place from March 16 to 23: the Workshop for actors – headed by Marcello Prayer – will be dedicated to the “method” of maestro Orazio Costa, with the participation of some of Costa’s pupils such as Alessio Boni, Fabrizio Gifuni, Luigi Lo Cascio and Marcello Prayer (they were all in Marco Tullio Giordana’s film La meglio gioventù).

In addition, there will be the great Roberto Herlitzka, another famous pupil of Orazio Costa. The maestro had a long career, mostly at the Accademia nazionale d’arte drammatica Silvio D’Amico in Rome and for three years in Bari where he created and guided the “Scuola di espressione ed interpretazione scenica” (1985-88). Costa contributed to the training of about 500 actors, including Gian Maria Volonté, Nino Manfredi, Paolo Panelli, Monica Vitti, Gabriele Lavia, Tino Buazzelli, Glauco Mauri, Mariano Rigillo, Edmonda Aldini, Marisa Fabbri, Luca Ronconi (who later became a great theatre director) and, for the directing course, Andrea Camilleri.

Besides the Workshop for actors in the afternoon, there will be four evening shows based on the Orazio Costa “method”: Alessio Boni and Marcello Prayer (who was for 14 years Costa’s assistant) will present their Canto degli esclusi. Concertato a due per Alda Merini; Fabrizio Gifuni and Luigi Lo Cascio will perform in two monologues dedicated to Gadda and to Pirandello, while Roberto Herlitzka will go on stage with his famous ExAmleto.

The second initiative– curated by Franco Montini – will be “Graduation exams”. A series of meetings with some of the leading figures of Italian film, tv and theatre scene.

During the career of all great actors there is always a special moment, a turning point that allows a definitive spring towards success and popularity. Suddenly a supporting actor obtains a leading role and becomes a star. At times, the turning point can be an extraordinary artistic performance, or an unforeseen box office result, or even a role that stays forever in everybody’s mind. Sometimes the connection of these three combinations causes the boom. An actor must be ready to catch the occasion, since, for good or bad, an episode may mark a career forever. In retrospect, these rare occasions can be really considered graduation exams. Some popular and important names of Italian cinema, actors and actresses, will be invited to detect, recall and recount their own graduation exam, that is the episode which has radically changes their own artistic career.

Cinema lessons, workshops and meetings 

• • Traditional and well-attended Cinema lessons will be given by some great personalities of Italian and international cinema. Their names will be disclosed later on.

• • Scriptwriter Giorgio Arlorio will hold a 7-days workshop, with experimental writing tests, dedicated to the “Script writing Profession”, for 30 selected participants only.
• • Cinematographer Roberto Girometti will hold a 5-days workshop dedicated to the “Cinematographer Profession”, for 30 selected participants only.
• • Art director Gianni Quaranta will hold a 5-days workshop dedicated to the “Art Director Profession”, for 30 selected participants only..
• • A public meeting on Apulia Film Commission‘s (AFC) action strategies 2012-2013 supporting Italian cinema made in Apulia, will take place in the afternoon of March 23rd, introduced by Silvia Godelli, Regional Councillor for the Mediterranean area, Culture and Tourism, and by Antonella Gaeta and Silvio Maselli, AFC’s president and director.

Bif&st 2013 staff

ARTISTIC DIRECTION (all following email addresses will be active starting November 1^st, 2012): 

• Direction Secretariat: Francesca Turrisi – segreteria.direzione@bifest.it 

• Direction Committee:  Fiammetta Profili – f.profili@bifest.it
• Enrico Magrelli – enrico.magrelli@gmail.com
• Marco Spagnoli – marco_spagnoli@yahoo.com
• Arcipelago Direction: arcipelago@bifest.it
• International Panorama and Documentaries: Giuliana La Volpe – g.lavolpe@bifest.it
• Tributes and RAI Teche materials: Orsetta Gregoretti – orsettagregoretti@virgilio.it
• Film sources and print traffic: Patrizia Prosperi – p.prosperi@bifest.it
• Documentaries: Maurizio Di Rienzo – maurizio@mauriziodirienzo.it
• Ceremonial: Raffaella Fioretta with the collaboration of Valentina Parente – cerimoniale@bifest.it

MANAGING DIRECTION

• Managing Director: Angelo Ceglie – angelo.ceglie@alice.it
• Project manager: Serge D’Oria – serge.doria@bifest.it
• General Coordination: Angela Bianca Saponari – a.saponari@bifest.it
• Hospitality: Carla Peron – hospitality@bifest.it

PRESS OFFICE, CATALOGUE AND WEBSITE  

• National and international Press office: Chicca Ungaro – chiccaungaro@gmail.com 
• Apulia Press office: Francesca Limongelli and Alessandra Rizzi, catalogue and website manager – ufficiostampa@bifest.it