MIGRANTI FILM FESTIVAL
Cultures on the Move
Pollenzo (CN) – June 1-4, 2018

Second edition of film festival dedicated to migration, bringing people together and telling migrant stories, to be held at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo

Six documentaries, four features, six shorts and five comedies have been selected from over 3,100 films submitted from 117 countries

Jury members include Stefania Barzini, Giuseppe Cederna, Carlo Freccero, Enrico Magrelli, Angelo Orlando, Francesca Paci and Valentina Parasecolo

The Migranti Film Festival is back again to take over Pollenzo and, this year, the nearby town of Bra as well. The film festival, directed by Dario Leone, is organized by the University of Gastronomic Sciences in collaboration with Slow Food, the City of Bra and the ASBARL association. The festival is part of MIBACT’s MigrArti project, and will be held from Friday June 1 until Monday June 4.

The festival has attracted an incredibly high number of submissions this year, with filmmakers from 117 countries sending in a total of 3,121 films for consideration.

This second edition of the Migranti Film Festival will seek to strike a note of positivity, focusing on the self-awareness of migrants, the search for authentic interactions, the pleasures of being together and the importance of listening and caring for others. The films will tell stories of recovery, of creativity as salvation, of migrants’ food, and of countries of origin. New this year is a section dedicated to comedy, offering smiles along with reflection.

The festival’s strong social mission will be reinforced with conferences, meetings, exhibitions, performances, workshops, children’s activities, migrant cooking and sport. Many of these will be organized thanks to significant support and partnership with organizations like UNHCR, the Rai3 “Radici” program, Médecins Sans Frontières and the Balon Mundial association.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fucVIUkEloo

The Migranti Film Festival will also be enriched by important national and international collaborations: with the Seattle International Film Festival, the International Environmental Film Festival in Buenos Aires, the Greenwich International Film Festival in New York, and the Sudestival in Monopoli, Italy.

One of the festival’s key aims is to give space to younger generations, and to this end, the jury for the Shorts section will be composed of high school students from Bra and Alba. The jury for the Features and Documentaries sections will be made up of notable figures from culture and film: writer and journalist Stefania Barzini, actor Giuseppe Cederna, television writer Carlo Freccero, film critic Enrico Magrelli, actor and director Angelo Orlando, La Stampa journalist Francesca Paci and journalist Valentina Parasecolo. The winner of the Comedy section will be judged by the audiences at the screenings.

The first day of the festival will be organized in the center of Bra, starting with the announcement of the winners of the “Piacere di conoscerti – incontro tra culture” (“A pleasure to meet you – a meeting between cultures”) competition, which welcomed 730 submissions from schoolchildren across the provinces of Cuneo, Turin and the rest of Italy.

From Saturday to Monday, the festival will return to its usual home at the UNISG campus in Pollenzo, with a packed program of events and activities: screenings of the documentaries and films in and out of competition of course, but also workshops on world food and drink organized by university students, four kitchens run by migrant communities from different countries serving traditional dishes, performances, children’s activities, interactive exhibitions and much more.

These four days of shared experiences will serve to make ideals tangible and to delineate positive trajectories, because as sociologist Paolo Jedlowski says, “sharing stories means making travel companions.”

You can find the full program here!