A Short Festival History
The Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema, or Pesaro Film Festival, was founded in Pesaro in 1965 by Bruno Torri and Lino Micciché (the latter who was its director until 1982) with the collaboration of Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci. In the years that followed Marco Müller, Adriano Aprà, and Andrea Martini served as directors. Currently, the festival is directed by Giovanni Spagnoletti.
THE PLACE
Pesaro is located on the Adriatic coast, about 40 Km from Rimini, in the province of Urbino. With a population of 100,000, it is a city of great cultural tradition. The well-known Rossini Opera Festival takes place there every year.
AN EXHIBITION FOR NEW CINEMA
Since its founding, the festival has been a window to new cinema. In its early years it gathered and presented all the principal films of the Nouvelles Vagues that developed during the 60s and 70s in Western and Eastern Europe, in Latin America (cinema nôvo and a retrospective of Cuban films) and in Asia (with a new Japanese cinema retrospective). The Mostra screened films by filmmakers who went on to become internationally renowned (including Nagisa Oshima, Lino Brocka, Glauber Rocha, Ray Guerr and Raoul Ruiz) and also organized meetings and debates featuring guests such as Roland Barthes, Christian Metz, Umberto Eco and Pier Paolo Pasolini. More recently, the Festival has been focused on the discovery of emerging filmmakers, spotlighting countries such as China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Iran, while always keeping a careful eye on all international cinema that offers new expressive forms and languages – from Chantal Akerman to Michael Snow.
“PESARO NUOVO CINEMA” COMPETITION – LINO MICCICHÈ AWARD
From 2004 it has been established this new secton devoted to the Mostra’s founder, Lino Miccichè, in order to present a selection of films coming from all over the world, always in the tradition of new cinema.
ITALIAN CINEMA
Since 1988, a Special Event has been dedicated to Italian Cinema, focusing on recent productions as well as the great personalities of our cinema (Vittorio De Sica, Vittorio Gassman, Mario Monicelli, Ettore Scola and Ermanno Olmi, among others).
THE AUDIENCE
More than thirty thousand people attend the festival each year. The festival hosts approximately three hundred journalists and media operators. Many of them are foreigners and thus guarantee international media coverage. Independent distributors and producers are also present every year.
PUBLICATIONS
The festival publishes every year an extensive catalogue and several books, collecting essays and documents that give the public more in-depth information about the films and the directors presented at the festival.