Competition “Pesaro Nuovo Cinema” – Lino Miccichè Award The competitive section, with debut works or sophomore films in world, international, or Italian premiere, are selected among hundreds of films submitted to the festival and others presented across the world. Our aim is to offer the centre stage to works that are cinematically free, fresh, even far from the accepted idea of ’festival film.’ There are two juries, a professional one (with Olimpia Carlisi, Amir Naderi, and Andrea Sartoretti) and the jury of students.

The titles include Kamagasaki Cauldron War by Leo Sato (Japan 2018), Nona. Si me mojan, yo los quemo by Camila José Donoso (Chile 2019), That Cloud Never Left by Yashaswini Raghunandan (India 2019), Demons by Daniel Hui (Singapore 2018), Bring Me The Head Of Carmen M. by Felipe Bragança and Catarina Wallenstein (Brazil/Portugal 2019), Inland/Meseta by Juan Palacios (Spain 2019), and Square by Karolina Bregula (Poland/Taiwan 2018).
[Selection by Pedro Armocida, Paola Cassano, Cecilia Ermini, Anthony Ettorre, and Raffaele Meale]

SATELLITE. Screenings for the future cinema This avant-garde, inclusive, and non-competitive section aims to search below the surface and find the actual, complex, imperfect, and indefinite products of the Italian very-low budget audio-visual production that operates outside of the film industry. These include debut films and works never released, not necessarily made by very young people. We are not interested in the premiere or the Italian exclusive in the festival market, but in showing what the others usually don’t only because of festival standards, such as format, duration, or production methods.

An open space, you would have said in a different time. Open to non-standard works. In this moment, the new cinema, both in Italy and abroad, needs open-mindedness, spaces to be listened to, seen, and discussed – about its flaws too – in some physical place of encounter, outside of the internet, i.e. its virtual habitat.
Some of the titles: Lorenzo Casali and Micol Roubini, "Watna"; Giacomo Laser, "Giacomo Laser e il demone"; Erik Negro, "Non c’è nessuna dark side"; Giuseppe Spina, "Variazioni luminose nei cieli della città"
[Selection by Anthony Ettorre, Annamaria Licciardello, Mauro Santini, Gianmarco Torri]

Special Event The new Italian genre cinema + Cinema at the beach In collaboration with the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca nazionale

The Special Event dedicated to Italian cinema this year is focused on the ’B-side’ of the Italian film industry. This means genre cinema in its most diverse forms, that from comedy – the chief genre of our film industry – gets even to bold experimentation.
The retrospective presents films from the past screened in 35mm at the Cinema at the Beach as well as more recent works that took on genre. A book is also published by Marsilio, edited by Pedro Armocida and Boris Sollazzo, with an analysis of the roots of genre in the Italian cinema and a reflection on how it was the lifeblood of Italy’s best moments and an unbearable absence in the country’s most critical phases.

Indicative list of films:
Per un pugno di dollari, Sergio Leone
Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto, Elio Petri
Gatto a nove code, Dario Argento
Milano Calibro 9, Fernando Di Leo
Banditi a Milano, Carlo Lizzani
Sette note in nero, Lucio Fulci
La notte americana del dottor Lucio Fulci, Antonietta De Lillo
Regalo di Natale, Pupi Avati
L’ultimo capodanno, Marco Risi
Velocità massima, Daniele Vicari
Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot, Gabriele Mainetti
Song’e Napule, Manetti Bros.
Indivisibili di Edoardo De Angelis
The Pills – Sempre meglio che lavorare, The Pills

Festival poster – Roberto Recchioni This year, in line with the theme of Italian genre cinema, the poster was designed by Roberto Recchioni (Rome 1974), a scriptwriter and scenarist for film and comics, an illustrator, a film critic, and a web celeb. His chief occupation is sequential art; in fact, he was defined the “rock star of Italian comics.” He wrote and still does stories of iconic characters like Tex, Diabolik, and Topolino (the Italian Mickey Mouse), but he also created John Doe, Detective Dante (along with Lorenzo Bartoli), Battaglia, David Murphy: 911, and the series Orfani. He is the current director of Dylan Dog, Tiziano Sclavi’s creature published by Sergio Bonelli Editore. He signed the graphic novels Mater Morbi (Bonelli-Bao), Chambara - La via del samurai (Bonelli-Bao), Asso (NPE), Ammazzatine (NPE), Le Guerre di Pietro (BD), Ucciderò ANCORA Billy the Kid (BD), Monolith (which inspired a film), and La Fine della Ragione (Feltrinelli). For Edizioni Star Comics, he was the editor of the series Roberto Recchioni presenta: I Maestri dell’Orrore, dell’Avventura e del Mistero. He worked at the concept, script, and realization of the comics linked to the films They Call Me Jeeg and I Can Quit Whenever I Want: Masterclass. He realized the first comic book inspired by the cycle Cronache di un mondo emerso by Licia Troisi. He published the novels YA - La battaglia di Campocarne, YA - L’Ammazzadraghi with Mondadori, and Ringo: chiamata alle armi for Multyplayer Edizioni. He runs a column of film criticism and analysis in the magazine Best Movie and one of videogame analysis in PlayStation Magazine.

“The idea for the image was born out of a few clues that had to do with both the communication strategy of the Pesaro Film Festival and my personal suggestions.
On one hand, the festival image needs be easily comprehensible in all contexts and formats. Other clues were the theme – a very specific one – and the tone and character of the festival itself.
For this reason, I soon opted to reject certain pictorial, highly descriptive solutions that came to my mind at an early stage. I focussed onto few elements that would be highly stylized in the graphic rendering, characterized by spot colours and thus reminiscent of pop art.
Cinema brought along the sequential factor (that defines comics too) and in its wake I went back to Andy Warhol’s work, namely the silkscreen series dedicated to Elvis Presley (from Double Elvis to Eight Elvis) in which the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, in a far-west gunman attire, points his gun at the audience.
This is where the three motion frames come from, with the hand and accessories transforming at every passage to represent three genres that used to be very popular with Italian film: thriller-horror, spaghetti western, and the poliziottesco subgenre. In the beginning, I had thought of using four frames, including the sword-and-sandal genre, but then I noticed that the image would lose visual impact so I put it aside and used the more usual triptych form.
Last, I added the institutional graphics arranged to facilitate the diagonal reading of the image.” Roberto Recchioni [from the Festival’s catalogue]

Lee Ann Schmitt Retrospective This is the first retrospective in Italy dedicated to Lee Anne Schmitt, one of the most interesting artists and film-makers in the US. She works mostly with 16mm film, dealing with themes such as political thought, personal experience, and the American landscape.

Her work was exhibited in important international institutions, such as MoMA, Getty Museum, and Centre Pompidou. Her films were screened at the Viennale, CPH:DOX, Oberhausen, Rotterdam, BAFICI, and FID Marseille.
The Pesaro Film Festival hosts a complete retrospective of her films. Lee Ann Schmitt will introduce all the screenings and will take part in a talk with Rinaldo Censi, the retrospective curator.

Filmography:
2017 Purge this Land (80 minutes, 16mm on HD video)
2017 The Farnsworth Scores (20 minutes, S16 on digital)
2014 womannightfilm (6 minutes, 16mm on HD video)
2015 Williams Lake (14 minutes, HD video)
2012 Three Stories (20 minutes,16mm on HD video)
2012 Company Town Remix (14 minutes, 16mm on HD video)
2011 The Last Buffalo Hunt (76 minutes, 16mm and video)
2010 Bowers Cave (14 minutes, 16mm)
2008 California Company Town (76 minutes, 16mm)
2005 The Wash (20 minutes, super8)
2003 Awake and Sing (42 Minutes,16mm Color Film)
2002 Nightingale (14 Minutes,16mm Color Film)
2000 Las Vegas Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Producer (7 Minutes, Video)

Focus on Spanish Cinema With the support of AC/E and in collaboration with the festivals “Margenes” and “Mujeres de cine”, the Pesaro Film Festival proposes a focus on contemporary Spanish cinema from the female point of view. It includes the following five films among features, shorts, and documentaries from the past few years and made by first-time women directors:

Ainhoa, yo no soy esa by Carolina Astudillo Muñoz (Spain 2018, 98’)
Ana de día by Andrea Jaurrieta (Spain 2018, 110’)
Trinta Lumes by Diana Toucedo (Spain 2018, 80’)
A estación violenta by Anxos Fazáns (Spain 2017, 68’)
Ancora lucciole by María Elorza (Spain 2018, 14’)

The film directors will take part in the Pesaro Film Festival thanks to the Programme of the Spanish public agency Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) for the “Internationalisation of Spanish Culture” (PICE) that promotes residencies of Spanish artists or creators that live in Spain at international cultural institutions through “Mobility” grants.

10 Years of Russian Cinema Russian women in film

The traditional section on contemporary Russian film, in collaboration with the Centre of Film Festivals and International Programmes of the Russian Federation, is equally dedicated to films directed by women.
This year, we also celebrate the 10th year of the focus on Russian cinema, curated by Olga Strada, with the following films:

Holidays (Marianna Sergeeva, 2018, 52’)
Spring (Natalia Konchalovskaja, 2018, 22’)
Engineer Fedorovich (Elena Murganova, 2018 20’)
Suleiman Mountain (Elizaveta Stishova, 2017, 101’)
The Port (Aleksandra Streljanaja, 2019, 91’)

Feminisms - Lessons in Film History #4 The fourth ‘module’ of Federico Rossin’s Lessons in Film History presents a retrospective that explores feminist cinema from 1968 to 1978 in four programmes:

1) WOMEN’S SOLITUDE
Gina Pane - Soli-trac (1968) 8’ / Jackie Raynal - Deux fois (1968) 64’ / Chantal Akerman - Saute ma ville (1968) 13’
2) ANOTHER STORY ALTOGETHER
Sue Clayton, Jonathan Curling - The Song of the Shirt (1979) 135’
3) FOR A CRITIQUE OF IMAGERY
Joan Jonas - Vertical Roll (1972) 20’ / Martha Rosler - Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975) 6’ / Hermine Freed - Art Herstory (1974) 22’ / Jay Street Collective - Sigmund Freud’s Dora. A case of mistaken identity (1979) 35’
4) GUERRILLA MEDIA
Carole Roussopoulos, Delphine Seyrig - S.C.U.M. Manifesto (1976) 27’ / Susan Shapiro, Esther Ronay, Francine Winham - Rapunzel Let Down Your Hair (1978) 75’ / Dara Birnbaum - Technology/Transformation. Wonder Woman (1978-79) 5’

30 Years of Fuori Orario – Things never seen In collaboration with Rai 3

It is not only a celebration, made of a series of tidbits screened throughout the festival, of the 30th anniversary of the Rai 3 TV night show, the “Indian reserve” (as per Bernardo Bertolucci’s definition) that revolutionized the way entire generations of film buffs would watch films. It is mostly a ‘perspective’ tribute with a view to the future, screening unreleased films that were not even broadcast by Fuori Orario and to be seen only at the Pesaro Film Festival. On top of this, a nightly marathon of images “never seen” and a meeting with the current authors of the show.

These are the titles:
IL SOGNO DELL’INDIA 40 ANNI DOPO by Tonino De Bernardi, 2015
GAROTO by Julio Bressane, 2015
L’AQUARIUM ET LA NATION by Jean-Marie Straub, 2015
WINTER SONG by Otar Iosseliani, 2015
WAITING by Amir Naderi, 1974

Opening Film / Cinema in the Square Homage - 50 years after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

The large arena of Pesaro’s Piazza del Popolo will host the screening of cult movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, directed by George Roy Hill 50 years ago and starring one of the best acting pairs ever, Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Steven Spielberg has recently declared after watching Green Book that it is his “favourite buddy movie since Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” The film will be screened in its original version with Italian subtitles.

20 Years of Stracult Among the rare shows dedicated to cinema on mainstream TVs, “Stracult” (Rai2), conceived by Marco Giusti, is the longest-running thanks to a fortunate combination of stories about all film genres. In fact, the invented term “stracult” (extra-cult) cuts cinema across the board.Best in Shorts – Contemporary Italian Animation + Roberto Catani Retrospective This is the fifth edition of Best in Shorts, the non-competitive sidebar curated by Pierpaolo Loffreda and realized in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts of Urbino, the Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche of Urbino, and the Fano International Film Festival.

Best in Shorts showcases the latest most original and inventive works by Italian animators of all ages – young authors as well as well-known film-makers.
The retrospective of this edition is dedicated to the work of Roberto Catani (Jesi 1965), who graduated in Animation Film at the Istituto d’Arte Scuola del Libro of Urbino in 1986. His films – Il pesce rosso (1995), La sagra (1998), La Funambola (2002) – were awarded at major national and international animation film festivals, including Espinho, New York, Zagreb, Siena, Naples, Annecy, Hiroshima, Dresden, Krakow, Wissembourg, Sorrento (Silver Ribbon), and Cartoon d’Or (nomination 2002).

Super 8 – Claudio Caldini One of the most outstanding Argentine experimental film-makers will be a guest of the Pesaro Film Festival, where his works will be screened in Super 8 at the Visual Arts Centre – Pescheria (The Fishery) along with a special performance.

Claudio Caldini was born in Buenos Aires in 1952. He began making experimental films in 1970, after studying at the Buenos Aires Centro Experimental of the Instituto Nacional de Cinematografía. He also attended the seminars of Alberto Fischerman, Werner Nekes, and Werner Schroeter. After working as lighting designer, he became film and audio-visual curator at the Museo de Arte Moderno (1998-2004). He was awarded with the Leonardo Prize of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (1997); the Grand Prize at the III Festival Franco-Latinoamericano de Video Arte for Heliografía (1994); and the First Prize at the Primera Semana del Cine Experimental, ARCO ’91 for El devenir de la piedras (1991).