Pesaro Film Festival, from Nanni Moretti to arthouse documentaries

by Camillo de Marco

15/06/2012 - The 48th edition of the International Film Festival of New Cinema (June 25 - July 2) presents a portrait of contemporary Italy through a complete retrospective of Nanni Moretti's work, organised together with Cinecittà Luce and Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale, and a wide choice of documentaries. Works which, the artistic director Giovanni Spagnoletti reminds us, "look at some of the problems and main events of the last five years: from the earthquake in l’Aquila and other natural disasters to education, from immigration to the economic crisis and the housing crisis. A significant focus on “non fiction” which seems to have become one of the major grounds for experimentation in today's audiovisual field. If not even the main one, seeing as the figures for documentary production are really surprising: 359 works in 2008, 373 in 2009, 485 in 2010, 519 in 2011 - and that despite widespread economic crisis, in particular in the entertainment industry".

"We hope that the next Government will give culture the attention it deserves. It's one of the first tasks of a democratic State", said the festival's President, Bruno Torri, also stressing that following the cuts of these recent years, "Pesaro's budget is 24 times smaller than that of the Rome Film Festival".

Despite the crisis, the Festival will show eight “open air” evening screenings on Pesaro's main square, including Barbara [trailer, film focus], a touching German drama from the director Christian Petzold, a multi-award winner in Europe, and a selection in competition with seven films from the hot spots of worldwide film production, all in the name of New Cinema. Others include Italian docu-fiction Un Consiglio a Dio by Sandro Dionisio, produced by Gianluca Arcopinto; Aida Begic's Djeca (Children of Sarejavo); Unten Mitte Kinn (Lower Upper Cut) by Germany's Nicolas Wackerbarth; La Jubilada (The Retired) by Jairo Boisier Olave; Sharqiya by Ami Livne.

Fifty years from the Oberhausen manifesto, the tribute to to New German Cinema includes works by Herzog, Straub, Reitz, Kluge and others. Two workshops with Gianfranco Pannone and Simone Massi will help participants to overcome the barrier between producer and consumer.

(Translated from Italian)