The German director Volker Schlöndorff, Oscar winner for the film The Tin Drum – based on the novel of the same title by the Nobel laureate Günter Grass – will be the president of Bif&st 2023 with Ettore Scola and Margarethe von Trotta as honorary presidents. The 14th edition of Bif&st-Bari International Film&Tv Festival will take place from 24 March to 1 April 2023.

Schlöndorff is one of the 21 Oscar-winning filmmakers who over the years have attended Bif&st, where they held very crowded masterclasses and received the Fellini Award. These are the other 20 Oscar winners at Bif&st: Stephen Frears (4 Oscars, plus various nominations), John Madden (7, plus various nominations), Helen Mirren (1, plus 3 nominations), Alan Parker (6, plus various nominations), Michael Radford (1, plus 4 nominations for The Postman), Andrzej Wajda (1, plus 4 nominations), Roberto Benigni (3, plus 4 nominations for Life is Beautiful), Bernardo Bertolucci (9 for The Last Emperor, plus 2 nominations), Dante Ferretti (3, plus 7 nominations) and Francesca Lo Schiavo (ditto), Ennio Morricone (2, plus 5 nominations), Vittorio Storaro (3), Luis Bacalov, Costa-Gavras, Taylor Hackford, Walter Fasano, Nicola Piovani, Gianni Quaranta, Paolo Sorrentino, Giuseppe Tornatore. In addition, 13 Oscar nominees, including authors and actors, protagonists of past editions of Bif&st: Andrej Končalovskij, Jacques Perrin, Carlos Saura, Max von Sydow, Gianni Amelio, Massimo Cantini Parrini, Cristina Comencini, Giancarlo Giannini, Tonino Guerra, Mario Monicelli, Francesco Rosi, Gianfranco Rosi, Ettore Scola, almost all also awarded in Cannes, Venice, Berlin and with the David di Donatello, the Silver Ribbons, the Golden Grolle.

Throughout its history, Bif&st has always paid close attention to international cinema but also and above all to Italian cinema and tv drama, if only because it is funded by national public bodies such as, in particular, the Puglia Region and the Ministry of Culture. Therefore, a substantial part of its rigorous program is coherently oriented towards the works created by Italian filmmakers, but at the same time supporting films and television drama from around the world, as highlighted in the following program which traces the guidelines of the cultural work that have determined the success of Bif&st.

• Petruzzelli Theatre

International Premieres – This non-competitive section will include 7 films, world premieres or unreleased in Italy, including Kysset (The Kiss) by Danish director Bille August (Oscar winner for Pelle the Conqueror) derived from Beware of Pity (1939), the first novel by the great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. Bille August won the Palme d’Or twice at Cannes Film Festival for Pelle the Conqueror (1988) and for The Best Intentions, scripted by Ingmar Bergman (1992). Another film already selected in the International Premieres section is the French Le torrent by film director and actress Anne Le Ny with the great actor André Dussollier, unforgettable star of the film Diplomatie (2014) directed by Volker Schlöndorff, which was presented at Bif&st 2017. Other 5 films are in the process of being selected.

International Panorama – The Petruzzelli will also host the screenings of the traditional competitive section with 12 films, world or Italian premieres from all over the world, which will be evaluated by the international jury – composed of the critic Jean Gili (France, president), of producer Bettina Brokemper (Germany), of actress Valeria Cavalli (Italy), of director Pippo Mezzapesa (Italy) and of critic Grazyna Torbicka (Poland) – which will award three prizes: to the best film director, to the best leading actress and actor. Here are the first 8 selected titles:

• Amusia by Marescotti Ruspoli with Maurizio Lombardi, Carlotta Gamba and Fanny Ardant (Italy);
• Kaymak (Republic of Macedonia, Denmark, Netherlands, Croatia) by Milcho Manchevski, Golden Lion in Venice and Oscar nomination for Before the Rain;
• Les engages by Émilie Frèche (France)
• Los Reyes del Mundo by Laura Mora Ortega (Colombia, France, Luxembourg, Mexico, Norway)
• No End by Nader Saeivar (Iran)
• Punch by Welby Ings with Tim Roth (New Zealand)
• Roxy by Dito Tsintsadze (Germany, Georgia, Belgium)
• Winners by Hassan Nazer (United Kingdom, nominated for an Oscar 2023).

The Federico Fellini Platinum Award for Cinematic Excellence, designed by Ettore Scola will reward the talent of 7 Italian and foreign talents – including the extraordinary Italian actress, director, musician Sonia Bergamasco (Alida Valli Award, Bif&st 2016) – who will hold a morning conversation with the audience after the screening of one of their films. The other 6 names who will receive the Fellini Award will be announced at the press conference scheduled for next March.

ItaliaFilmFest/The Best of the Year – Two awards a day will be conferred by the jury of film critics to the best Italian films of the last year for these various categories: Franco Cristaldi Award for best producer; Mario Monicelli Award for best director; Furio Scarpelli Award for best screenplay; Anna Magnani Award for best leading actress; Vittorio Gassman Award for the best leading actor; Alida Valli Award for best supporting actress; Alberto Sordi Award for best supporting actor; Ennio Morricone Award for the best composer; Giuseppe Rotunno Award for the best author of photography; Dante Ferretti Award for best art director.

• Piccinni Theatre

The ItaliaFilmFest/New Italian Cinema – 7 Italian films (currently being selected) will have their world or international premiere and will be evaluated by a selected audience jury, chaired by a personality of cinema or culture, who will confer the Ettore Scola Award for best director; the Mariangela Melato Award and the Gabriele Ferzetti Award for best leading actress and actor.

In the afternoon, in the consolidated section “Cinema, Industry, Work”, 6 screenings are scheduled followed by meetings with representatives of industry, trade unions, civil society and culture in discussion with some of the authors of the films.

Titanus which will be 120 in year 2024 – As part of the historic section of Bif&st History, memory, strongly desired by Ettore Scola when he was president of the festival, the Piccinni Theatre will host a tribute to the oldest Italian film company entitled Titanus which will be 120 in yeah 2024. It was in fact founded in Naples in 1904 by Gustavo Lombardo, then led at the peak of success by his son Goffredo until the 2000s and now in the hands of his nephew Guido Lombardo. 10 films that have made the history of Italian cinema will be presented: The Overcoat by Alberto Lattuada (1952); Rocco and his brothers by Luchino Visconti (1960); The Four Days of Naples by Nanni Loy (1962); The Treasure of San Gennaro by Dino Risi (1966); The Bird with the Crystal Plumage by Dario Argento (1970); Rome by Federico Fellini (1972); Le Bal by Ettore Scola (1983); Troppo forte by Carlo Verdone (1987); Il Pap’occhio by Renzo Arbore (1990) is a tenth film, to be confirmed. Lastly, the extraordinary documentary by Giuseppe Tornatore The Last Leopard – Portrait of Goffredo Lombardo (2010, presented in Petruzzelli theatre in 2011) is scheduled on April 1st. Some authors and actors linked to Titanus will recall their collaboration with Goffredo and with Guido Lombardo, to whom we are grateful for having made the 10 films available for Bif&st, together with a great event that will be announced soon.

• Kursaal Santalucia Theatre

The restored and beautiful theatre of the Puglia Region, in addition to the pre-opening evening of 24 March with an event in preparation, will host the following activities:

BariFictionF&st – From 25 March to 1 April there will be – after the success of the last edition, and with the new BariFictionF&st logo – a large program of television works (TV movies, series, mini-series, docufiction, etc.) produced by major Italian and international broadcasters, primarily Rai Fiction. The program includes the participation of the most important talents of the works and onstage meetings with them and the producers. Among the first titles selected, premieres of some episodes of the Italian series Il maresciallo Fenoglio with Alessio Boni from the crime novels by Gianrico Carofiglio; Rocco Schiavone 5 with Marco Giallini; Un posto al sole, and some episodes of the French-Belgian series Sophie Cross directed by Frank Van Mechelen with Alexia Barlier (also in Michael Bay’s 13 Hours): we will see them next spring on Rai network.

Tribute to Ugo Santalucia – 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the theatrical release of Ludwig by Luchino Visconti for which producer Ugo Santalucia (Bari, 1924-2000) won the David di Donatello for best film in 1973. The lawyer Ugo Santalucia, son of the founder of Kursaal, Orazio, produced over 40 films in his long career. To remember the extraordinary productive and human adventure that accompanied the famous Visconti film – written by him with Suso Cecchi d’Amico and Enrico Medioli, photography by Armando Nannuzzi, editing by Ruggero Mastroianni, costumes by Piero Tosi, played by Helmut Berger, Romy Schneider and Silvana Mangano – Bif&st will present it on April 1st at 7.30 pm in the full 228-minute version that will be introduced by Oscar Iarussi, Anton Giulio Mancino, Tonino Pinto and Francesco Santalucia.

• Multicinema Galleria

Sud&Cinema – Theatre 1 of the well-known Galleria cinema will offer the opportunity – with 32 scheduled screenings (plus another 4 in Piccinni Theatre) – for an in-depth reflection on the most significative cinematic talents, emerging or already strongly consolidated, who have their cultural and demographic roots in the various regions of Southern Italy. The event will focus on authors born in Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Puglia, Sardinia, Sicily.

• Cinema workshops

The screenwriting workshop will be held by film director and screenwriter Franco Bernini in Sala Murat in Bari, while actress and film director Milena Mancini will hold her acting workshop in the Van Westerhout Theatre in Mola di Bari for whose availability we thank the mayor Giuseppe Colonna and the municipal administration.

• Meetings, press conferences, book presentations

The Spazio Murat will be the venue – previously in Margherita Theatre, now closed for restoration – for press conferences, meetings with cinema protagonists, book presentations.

• The festival

The general program of Bif&st 2023 was announced by the artistic director Felice Laudadio during the press conference held on 28 November 2022 at the Kursaal Santalucia Theatre in Bari, with the participation of the president of the Puglia Region Michele Emiliano, the mayor of Bari Antonio Decaro, the president of the Apulia Film Commission Foundation Giuseppe Savino and the director of the regional Department of Culture Aldo Patruno. The Bari festival – placed under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic – is promoted by the Puglia Region, produced by the Apulia Film Commission with the collaboration of the Municipality of Bari, the Ministry of Culture and Puglia Promozione. Bif&st will have its locations in Bari in the Petruzzelli, Piccinni, Kursaal Santalucia Theatres, in the Spazio Murat, in the Multicinema Galleria, and in Mola di Bari in the Van Westerhout Theatre.

Cinema&Science

Piccinni Theatre, Bari
March 27-April 1, 2023

For one of the traditional and most significant sections of the festival – Cinema&Scienza -, curated by Orsetta Gregoretti and Silvia Mattoni, six appointments have been set up dedicated in particular, but not only, to pupils of schools in the city and province of Bari. The initiative, carried out in close collaboration with the scientific community of universities and research institutions, and in particular with scientists from the National Research Council (CNR), includes 6 morning meetings to be held at 10:00 at the Teatro Piccinni (with free admission) from Monday 27 March to Saturday 1 April.

Key themes of the project are the environment and the climate. Sensitive topics and particularly dear to the younger generations, but not only. Global warm ing and climate change – from melting glaciers to rising sea levels, to an increase in extreme weather phenomena and desertification – are causing major environmental risks.

Cinema&Scienza intends not only to raise awareness on the subject, but also to promote planning actions aimed at managing and containing the effects of climate change. The project envisages a structured itinerary: science shows, documentary film screenings and debates with scientists. These are the topics:

1. MESSINA STRAIT: SEA OF LEGENDS (March 27)

• DOCUMENTARY ON THE STRAIT OF MESSINA – MICROPLASTICS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
• A SEA OF WASTE THOUSAND METERS DEEP

2. “ALIENS” IN THE MEDITERRANEAN & NOVEL FOOD (March 28)

• FINDINGS AND CURIOSITIES TO TELL THE STORY OF OUR SEA
• NOVEL FOOD AND RESEARCH: NEW RESOURCES AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES (COOKING SHOW)
• THE ALIEN BLUE CRAB INVADES THE MEDITERRANEAN GOURMET CUISINE

3. TORNADO HUNTERS (March 29)

Massimiliano Pasqui, physicist and researcher at the CNR Institute for Bioeconomy, will talk about tornadoes. Students will be able to follow an in vitro reproduction of the tornado phenomenon and will watch a film on the subject.

4. THE EARTH HAS NEVER BEEN SO HOT! (March 30)

Roberto Danovaro, full professor at the Polytechnic University of Marche, where he holds the courses in Marine Biology, Marine Ecology and Environmental Ethics. The planet is burning. The temperature rises more and more like never before. Whose fault is it? Danovaro will talk about it after the screening of the film Point of no return.

5. MELTED ICE (March 31)

Renato Colucci, researcher at the CNR Institute of Polar Sciences (ISP). The melting of glaciers is now a real problem. The data collected and the satellite images of the “before and after” on the conformation of glaciers on Earth show an acceleration never recorded before. An unstoppable and increasingly rapid emergency that requires careful monitoring and targeted actions to avoid large-scale environmental and climatic disasters in the short term. After the screening of a feature film the researcher will intervene explaining, through images, also the situation of the Italian glaciers.

6. AGAINST DESERTIFICATION (April 1st)

Screening of the docufilm The Forest Maker (Germany 2021, 90′) by Volker Schlöndorff who will speak at the end of the film together with Antonello Pasini of the CNR, an expert on climate change.

Tony Rinaudo is an Australian agronomist, of distant Italian origin, who has been fighting for 30 years together with small African farmers against desertification and challenges the ideas of conventional reforestation with his simple but effective method. The Forest Maker is a portrait of this extraordinary man whose life’s work was awarded the so-called alternative Nobel, the Right Livelihood Award in 2018. Rinaudo has found a way to make trees grow in drier areas of the Sahel. A work of decades that has ensured the livelihood of thousands of farmers in Africa. His method, “Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration” (FMNR), restores not only the soil but also dignity and hope. Volker Schlöndorff looks at the effect FMNR has had on tackling desertification, often coming across issues that also concern Europe – migration, climate change, gender justice.

Antonello Pasini is a climatological physicist at the CNR and professor of Climate Physics at the Roma Tre University. He is responsible for developing and applying mathematical models in the field of climate study. He is the author of numerous articles in international journals and has also published popular books, such as Greenhouse effect, war effect. Climate, conflicts, migrations: Italy at the forefront (ed. Chiarelettere, with G. Mastrojeni) and The disaster equation: climate change in fragile territories (Edizioni Code). Pasini is also an active disseminator: in 2016 his blog “Il Kyoto fisso” won the national award for scientific dissemination.

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