ON THIS PAGE:
- A pre-opening in memory of Citto Maselli
- Bookciak, Action! brings Nichi Vendola to the Lido
A pre-opening in memory of Citto Maselli
Venice Days (and the Bookciak, Azione! Award ceremony) began with a tribute in Sala Laguna to their founder, Citto Maselli, the great filmmaker who passed away last March 21 at 92. A filmmaker capable of holding together political commitment (an anti-fascist partisan, militant in the PCI and then in Rifondazione Comunista) and cultural commitment with the strength of a cinema immersed in the criticality, nuances and contradictions of reality. Among his titles, Gli indifferenti (1964), Lettera aperta a un giornale della sera (1970), Il sospetto (1975) and Storia d’amore (1986), Grand Jury Prize and Coppa Volpi for Valeria Golino in Venice. During the tribute bestowed on him in 2021 at the Lido he said, “This tribute perhaps means that I have somehow contributed, even if in a small way, to the change of this terrible society.” Avventura di un fotografo (1983), based on a subject by Italo Calvino, was screened in his honour. Venice Days will open with a small footage from his documentary Frammenti di ‘900 (2005) which will be screened in Sala Perla.
Bookciak, Action! brings Nichi Vendola to the Lido
“Cinema can unveil a reality that the so-called common places and the common sense conceal and mystify. Mass projection set subjects with no right to speak to come out of anonymity. A proper example lies in the relationship between cinema and homosexuality.” Thus Nichi Vendola, at the Venice Film Festival as President of the Jury for the 12th edition of Bookciak, Azione!, the film-literary competition conceived and directed by Gabriella Gallozzi that was the pre-opening event of Venice Days once again, celebrating the young authors of the short films winners. And young they are, all under the age of 20: Greta Amadeo for Fino alla fine dell’estate (based on the novel La mia amica scavezzacollo by Micol Beltramini). Veronica Pellegrinet for Pozzanghere (from the poetry collection Sacro e urbano by Isabella Capurso) and the 24 students of the Multimedia Dramaturgy 2022-2023 course of the Academy of Fine Arts of Brescia (represented on stage by Matteo Papetti) for ResoNumero0051, based on the graphic novel Isometria della memoria by Davide Passoni. The same book inspired the short film that received the Special Mention, Pensiero, Ricordo, Memora by 17-year-old Anita Spivach.
The texts from which the filmmakers derived their works are the winners of the Bookciak Legge Award (with the jury chaired by Marino Sinibaldi and formed together with him by Silvia Scola, Mimmo Calopresti and Carola Susani). These were joined by Il volo del pettirosso by Alvise Fretti, for the special section Memory Ciak (in collaboration with Spi-CGIL, LiberEtà and Premio Zavattini), where Riccardo Malleo (CSC student) won for Presente dilatato. An absolute novelty is the Forza Maggiore Award, to the best short film from Onda Bookciak (formed by the short films winners of past editions) and awarded (to La memoria del corpo) by the Jury Giovani Tutta un’altra storia – Biografilm Festival, from the Istituto Penale Per Minorenni Pietro Siciliani of Bologna. The female convicted of the Enzo Rossi High School in the Rebibbia Women’s Prison made El Chuño Los Andes in Rebibbia (from Sacro e urbano). The theme of Bookciak, Action! 2023 was, not surprisingly, Stories to Stay Human (with thoughts turned to the disturbing drifts of current events), and it found representation (also) in the political and cultural commitment of Vendola, here joined by the Permanent Jury composed of Wilma Labate, Gianluca Arcopinto and Teresa Marchesi.
