56a Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema

Highlights 50+1 Pesaro Film Festival

The Pesaro Film Festival turns 50 years old under the new artistic direction of Pedro Armocida. And offers a new take on its traditional dedication to “new cinema,” with the youngest and most innovative forms of contemporary film language.
Says Armocida: “We are numbering this year’s edition ’50+1’ in order to highlight the Festival’s profound and innovative rebirth. One that nevertheless follows in the great tradition of Festival creators Lino Miccichè and Bruno Torri (still coordinator of the new scientific committee, comprising Pedro Armocida, Laura Buffoni, Andrea Minuz, Mauro Santini, Boris Sollazzo and Gianmarco Torri). The Festival has always rigorously sought out, studied and promoted ‘new cinema’ in all the artistic paths it has taken in the years since Miccichè was its first artistic director (followed by Marco Müller, Adriano Aprà, Andrea Martini and Giovanni Spagnoletti). And it will do so yet again, as its expands its scope in the city of Pesaro with the opening of a second theatre (in the historic Teatro Sperimentale) and a new partnership with the prestigious Centro Arti Visive Pescheria, where the discussions, round tables and audience Q&As will be held.”

The Twenty-Tens. Italian film debuts (2010-2015)

SPECIAL EVENT
Dedicated to debut Italian directors of the past five years, this year’s Special Event perfectly embodies the Festival’s new programming. With a focus on narrative features, the wide selection of films traces the themes, trends and works of the very latest in new Italian cinema.

THE FILMS
The lion’s share of the Special Event is devoted to narrative films with documentary roots and/or crossover elements, including Salvo (Fabio Grassadonia, Antonio Piazza), Small Homeland (Alessandro Rossetto), The Interval (Leonardo Di Costanzo), Seven Works of Mercy (Gianluca De Serio, Massimiliano De Serio), Tir (Alberto Fasulo), I Am Li (Andrea Segre), Et in terra pax (Matteo Botrugno, Daniele Coluccini), Corpo celeste (Alice Rohrwacher), Summer of Giacomo (Alessandro Comodin), Arianna (Alessandro Scippa) and Love in the Time of Death (Andrea Caccia). We are also spotlighting more recent films – N-Capace (Eleonora Danco) and Ananke (Claudio Romano) – and filmmakers working outside of Italy (Andrea Pallaoro, Medeas).

A second section highlights the innovative and diverse approach that many of the debut directors have to one of cinema’s classic genres: comedy. Titles include I Can Quit Whenever I Want (Sidney Sibilia), Scialla! (Francesco Bruni), The Mafia Kills Only in the Summer (Pif), 18 Years Later (Edoardo Leo) and I primi della lista (Roan Johnson).

The third section features the directorial debuts of actors who were compelled to step behind the camera, to tell personal contemporary stories, such as Valeria Golino (Honey) and Luigi Lo Cascio (The Ideal City).

THE ROUND TABLE
The Special Event will be rounded out by a panel with directors, critics and other Italian cinema professionals, who will discuss and compare their views on filmmaking in Italy today.

THE BOOK
The Special Event is accompanied by our traditional book (published by Marsilio) of essays by film critics and historians analyzing the distinguishing traits of the works these debut filmmakers. The volume will also include interviews with many of the participating directors, and a list of all the first feature films made in Italy in the last 15 years.

Pesaro Nuovo Cinema – Lino Miccichè Award
Pesaro’s official competition comprises seven Italian premieres from seven different territories. As per tradition, the selection committee (Pedro Armocida, Paola Cassano, Anthony Ettorre and Michela Greco) will offer some of the best first and second films of 2014-2015 – often by young directors – that epitomize the current trends of new cinema.

New this year: the competition will be judged by a jury of university and film school students.

Cinema in the Square
Opening film: Steven Spielberg’s Jaws
The traditional open-air screenings in Pesaro’s main square – quality films with wide appeal to a public that votes on the Audience Award winner – will kick off with a pre-Festival screening of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. In partnership with Universal Pictures International Italia, exactly 40 after its first public screening in the US (June 20, 1975), the Festival will present the re-mastered Blu-Ray copy (in English, with subtitles) of one of the most revolutionary films in cinema history, which catapulted its director to the forefront of the New Hollywood wave.

Tayfun Pirselimoglu
The complete retrospective of one of Turkey’s most important filmmakers. Director Tayfun Pirselimoglu has not only made a name for himself among the world’s most prestigious festivals, he’s also a renowned novelist, painter and engraver in his homeland. (The Festival will also host an exhibit of a collection of his paintings).

From his earliest shorts – My Uncle (1999) and Silent is Golden (2002) – to his 2002 feature debut Innowhereland, to his “trilogy of conscience and death” – Rıza (2007), Haze (2009) and Hair (2010): Pirselimoglu’s films have always expressed his distinctly minimalist and rigorous vision. ¬His latest film, I’m Not Him, considered his masterpiece, won Best Screenplay at the 2013 Rome International Film Festival.

Female Russian directors
Our partnership with Russian film institutions continues with Female Perspectives, programmed by Olga Strada, which this year features debut films as part of our ongoing quest to understand the cultural ferment driving the youngest generations of a continuously evolving film industry.

Film is dead, long live Super 8
In today’s digital age, some artists still stubbornly work with film. In fact, numerous A-list filmmakers (including Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino) even struck a deal with Kodak to continue making film stock. The Festival will present five directors – Helga Fanderl, Jaap Pieters, Philippe Cote, Giulia Vallicelli and Livio Colombo – who make and screen their works in Super 8. The screenings will be accompanied by live commentary from the directors, to help us (re)discover all the potential of this ever-legitimate medium.

Pier Paolo Pasolini: Our contemporary
A cinema of poetry 50 years later
Forty years after Pier Paolo Pasolini’s tragic death, and exactly 50 years since he took part in the first Festival panel on film criticism and semiotics, where he read his introduction to The Cinema of Poetry (the renown of which was immediately established), Pesaro pays homage to one of the greatest artists and intellectuals of the previous century, with a wide selection of his films and a round table examining both the importance and originality of his contribution to film studies (with the three Pesaro texts) and the topicality of his ideas and civil commitment.

For the occasion, the Festival offers a series of events with contemporary artists, in particular musicians whose work over the years has paid tribute to PPP. Including one of Italy’s most innovative singer-songwriters, Pierpaolo Capovilla (Il teatro degli orrori), who will hold a reading in Pesaro from his La religione del mio tempo.

Opening theme by Chiara Malta
Chiara Malta, one of Italy’s most promising young filmmakers, who is currently at work on her debut feature, will create the Festival’s new opening theme: a short fairy tale on film and life – “Because cinema is life and life is cinema” – that harks back to the magic of the earliest cinema.

16mm images: Pascal Granel; editor: Santi Minasi; animated credits: Sébastien Laudenbach; electric guitar: Olivier Mélano

Poster by Alessandro Gottardo (aka Shout)
One of Italy’s most sought-after illustrators abroad, Alessandro Gottardo – a regular contributor to prestigious US publications like the New York Times, New Yorker, Washington Post, Variety and Vanity Fair – has chosen to create his first-ever film festival poster for us.

2015 Amnesty Award
Established in 2007, the Amnesty Italia - Cinema and Human Rights Prize is awarded to the film that best depicts the manifold themes of human rights. The film is chosen from among competition and out-of-competition titles by a professional jury.

After Hours: The 25th hour
Five evenings of screenings – each programmed at around midnight in Palazzo Gradari by five different curators – offers the latest in cutting-edge visual arts.
Pesaro in Rome and Milan
Pesaro in Rome (July 2015), a selection of films from various Festival sections, will screen as part of one of Rome’s summer film events. The films will be presented in September in Milan.

Press material is available at www.mimmomorabito.it

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