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Bif&st 2017, eighth and a half edition (including the 2009 pilot edition) of Bari International Film Festival, will be held – under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic – from Saturday 22 to Saturday 29 April 2017, promoted by Apulia Region – president Michele Emiliano; by the Council for Tourism and Cultural Industry headed by Loredana Capone; in collaboration with the City of Bari, mayor Antonio Decaro; produced by Fondazione Apulia Film Commission, president Maurizio Sciarra, deputy president Giandomenico Vaccari, CEO Antonio Parente.

Bif&st is supported, also financially, by: SIAE (Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori), general director Gaetano Blandini; Confindustria Bari e BAT, president Domenico De Bartolomeo; ANCE Bari e BAT, president Giuseppe Fragasso; Gruppo Menelao headed by Michele Boccardi; Gruppo Marino Automobili (Renauto) headed by Luisa Cavallo Marino; Circolo Canottieri Barion headed by Luigi Lobuono. Technical sponsors are: Monile di Aldo Arata and MarioMossa Gioielliere; Cinemeccanica; Stelci&Tavani. Main media partner is RAI, other media partners are: Corriere del Mezzogiorno, La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, La Repubblica, Ilikepuglia, La Feltrinelli.

Artistic Direction

Margarethe von Trotta in Petruzzelli Theatre

Film director Margarethe von Trotta is president of Bif&st – created and directed by Felice Laudadio – while honorary president is Ettore Scola who conferred to von Trotta the “Federico Fellini Platinum Award for Cinematic Excellence”. The great German film director presented at Bif&st three of her films in absolute Italian première: Die abhandene Welt (in 2015); Hannah Arendt (2013) and Die Schwester (2011), and participated to several festival editions, also holding a very crowded Cinema Lesson. The Direction committee members are Angelo Ceglie, Enrico Magrelli, Marco Spagnoli.

Some anticipations on the program in progress:

International Premières

In this non-competitive section the Petruzzelli Theatre will host from April 22 to 29 at 9 pm eight films, absolute Italian premières or world premières, among which:

April 22, Opening Night: LA TENEREZZA by Gianni Amelio with Renato Carpentieri, Enzo Casertano, Elio Germano, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Maria Nazionale, Micaela Ramazzotti, Greta Scacchi – Italy 2017, world premiere.

Feelings that cross between a smile and violence. A father and his unloved children, a brother and a sister in conflict, a young couple that seems peaceful. And children who see and cannot rebel. The story of two families set in an unknown Naples, far from the suburbs, a middleclass city where wealth can turn into tragedy, even though hope is at hand.
Rai Cinema-01 Distribution

20th CENTURY WOMEN by Mike Mills with Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig – USA 2016

Set in Santa Barbara in 1979, the film follows Dorothea, a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent  son, Jamie at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion.  Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women in Jamie’s upbringing – via Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields’ home, and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour.
Sony Pictures Italia – Warner Bros

LE DIVAN DE STALINE by Fanny Ardant with Gérard Depardieu, Emmanuelle Seigner – France-Portugal 2017

In a secret residence where older Stalin came to rest a few days, a young painter, Danilov comes to present the dictator his artistic project of a posthumous monument to his glory. Lidia, Stalin’s mistress, has selected Danilov and his work among other artists and was the one who introduced him to Stalin. All three of them will face fear, suspicion and lies. Lidia and Danilov will play their destiny in front of Stalin.

April 29, Closing Night: GIFTED by Marc Webb with Chris Evans, USA 2016

A single man raises his child prodigy niece in a coastal town in Florida. His plans for a normal school life for the girl are foiled when the seven-year-old’s mathematical abilities come to the attention of his formidable mother, whose plans for her granddaughter threaten to separate them.
Fox Searchlight-20th Century Fox Italy

Other four titles, to be added soon, will be announced in the coming weeks and in the press conference to be held in Rome in early April.

International Panorama

12 film in competition, from all over the world, will have at Bif&st their Italian or International première. Italian films – currently undergoing selection – will be presented in Bari as world premières.

An audience jury, with 30 selected members, headed by actress, screenwriter and film director Chiara Caselli, will confer the following awards:

• Bif&st 8½ International Award to the best film director
• Bif&st 8½ International Award to the best actor in a leading role
• Bif&st 8½ International Award to the best actress in a leading role

Among selected films, there will be the world première of TUTTO QUELLO CHE VUOI by Francesco Bruni with Giuliano Montaldo, Andrea Carpenzano, Donatella Finocchiaro (RAI Cinema-01 Distribution), and LAND OF THE GODS by Goran Paskaljevic. All other titles will be announced during the press conference at Casa del Cinema in Rome in early April, which will be live streamed.

ItaliaFilmFest/Feature Films

The permanent Bif&st jury of 9 Italian film critics, members of SNCCI (National union of Italian film critics) – Valerio Caprara (Il Mattino), Paolo D’Agostini (La Repubblica), Fabio Ferzetti (Il Messaggero), Francesco Gallo (ANSA), Alessandra Levantesi Kezich (La Stampa), Paolo Mereghetti (Corriere della Sera), Franco Montini (president of SNCCI), Federico Pontiggia (Il Fatto Quotidiano and La Rivista del Cinematografo), Silvana Silvestri (Il Manifesto) – will confer 13 awards, to be chosen among the best Italian films of the year, selected by the festival director by the end of March 2017.

ItaliaFilmFest/Debut and Second Feature Films

An audience jury of 30 selected members, headed by German film critic Klaus Eder, general secretary of FIPRESCI (International federation of film critics), which will hold its yearly assembly in Bari as usual, will confer three awards to the Italian films selected in competition among the best debut and second feature films with a theatrical release or presented in international festivals by the end of March 2017.

CINEMA AND SCIENCE

The tribute to the great actor and producer Jacques Perrin, in the “Cinema and Science” program, will include several films directed or produced by him. These works are related to environment and nature, and have enjoyed a great and permanent success, also due to wide release via tv, DVD, Blu-Ray. At the end of each screening a meeting with renowned scientists will take place.

• LE PEUPLE SINGE by Gérard Vienne, speaker Michel Piccoli, 1989
followed by a meeting with ethologist Enrico Alleva
• MICROCOSMOS: LE PEUPLE DE L’HERBE by Claude Nurisdany and Marie Pérennou, 1996
followed by a meeting with zoologist Roberto Argano
• LE PEUPLE MIGRATEUR by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, 2001
followed by a meeting with ornithologist Fulvio Fraticelli
• OCÉANS by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, 2011
followed by a meeting with oceanographer Massimiliano Di Bitetto
• LES SAISONS by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, 2015
followed by a meeting with Antonio Navarra, president of CMCC Lecce
• L’EMPIRE DU MILIEU DU SUD by Jacques Perrin and Eric Deroo, 2010 (Cinema and History)
followed by a meeting with Ugo Gregoretti and Jacques Perrin

The “Cinema and Science” program will be completed by a special event dedicated to the terrible identification work on migrants’ bodies fished out in the Mediterranean Sea. This has been an operation coordinated by anatomist-pathologist prof. Cristina Cattaneo – University of Milan – who will be in Bari to discuss together with Médecins Sans Frontières Italy, Michele Emiliano and Gianni Amelio, after the screening of “Lamerica” by Amelio.

Cinema Lessons and “Federico Fellini Platinum Award for Cinematic Excellence”

Some prestigious cinema personalities – among which Sabrina Ferilli (April 25), Fanny Ardant (28) and Jacques Perrin (29) – will hold in Petruzzelli Theatre around 11 am the traditional Cinema Lesson. A mini-tribute of 3 films will be dedicated to each of these personalities the day before the Lesson. In a gala evening in the Petruzzelli they will receive the Federico Fellini Platinum Award for Cinematic Excellence, a platinum reproduction by Monile, in collaboration with MarioMossa Gioielliere, of the famous Fellini profile sketched by Ettore Scola, which is the logo of Bif&st.

FOCUS ON…

The awards of section ItaliaFilmFest/Feature Films will be conferred each evening from April 22 to 29 in Petruzzelli Theatre, after the screening of each awarded film in the Galleria Multiplex. The winners will participate in a Focus on… meeting with the audience, hosted by Franco Montini, president of SNCCI, in the Barion club.

MUSIC IN THE EYES–  Remembering Nino Rota

In the year of Bif&st 8½ we will remember the work of one of the greatest Italian composers, author of almost all of the scores of Federico Fellini’s films: Nino Rota. Selections of Rota’s scores – curated by Maestro Rino Marrone – will be performed by several musicians and will open each evening in Petruzzelli Theatre.

MEETINGS AND RETROSPECTIVE VITTORIO GASSMAN – DINO RISI

Eight meetings dedicated to the work of Vittorio Gassman and Dino Risi will take place each afternoon at 5 pm in collaboration with La Feltrinelli bookshop. Bif&st will homage Gassman and Risi with the already announced large and intersecting retrospectives, organized with the crucial collaboration of: Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale, RAI Teche and Luce Cinecittà. The meetings will be coordinated by French film critic Jean Gili, and will see the participation of Alessandro Gassmann, of Marco Risi, of actors and actresses who worked with Gassman and Risi, and of authors of books and documentaries about the two film masters. A large photographic exhibition on Vittorio Gassman, organized by  Cineteca Nazionale, will be set up all around the Petruzzelli Theatre.

WORKSHOPS

Following the positive experiences of countless workshops in the past 8 years, new workshops will be organized on film editing (Image and Sound, by film editor Roberto Perpignani) and on theatre training (Crime and Punishment, by theatre director  Francesco Giuffré). Both workshops – promoted by SIAE – will be reserved to 30 young people selected by the artistic direction.