Now in its 23rd edition, this international short film festival organized in Reggio Emilia by the Cine Club Reggio (Fedic affiliate), questions the error, whether intentional or involuntary, with a rich program that also includes significant stages outside the main location. We take stock of the Reggio Film Festival, its history and its present, with Luca Pignatti, one of the creative, organizational and theoretical souls of the event.
Liliana Cavani on the set of “I cannibali”, 1969, ph Antonio Casolini, courtesy of Reggio Film Festival
Giovanni Crotti: You told me ‘off the record’ that you would struggle to live without the festival. What do you mean exactly?
Luca Pignatti: I mean, as soon as an edition closes, even for immediate organizational reasons for the next one, I (and not only me), can’t wait to immerse ourselves in the planning of the following year. Some of us feel on our skin all year long, pleasantly, the adrenaline and rigorous attention for this event that has now entered the capillary fabric of the territory.
There are two fundamental concepts of the Festival, rigorous attention and connection with the territory. Let’s start with the first: it’s alienating that this year the attention you’re talking about has given birth to the festival theme of error.
True, this year the theme of the Festival (because every year there is a specific one) is the error, so much so that the alienating effect you claim came to many when officially reading that this year we are reaching the 23rd edition of the Reggio Flim Fetsival – International shrot fmil cotnest, with the deliberate incorrect typing of the official words of the event.
Dingding Jiang, “Asche”, Germany, 2024, 23′ 36”, international premiere, video still frame courtesy Reggio Film Festival
In addition, you awarded the Targa Zavattini, named after the great director from Reggio, Liliana Cavani for the attention and the vision of her cinema. In clear antithesis with the error.
Every year we award, with very detailed and profound motivations and thanks to a jury of absolute quality, a personality who has distinguished himself/herself in the cultural and social field. Among the names that I mention from memory, Dario Fo, Pupi Avati, Matteo Garrone, Maurizio Nichetti, Marco Bellocchio, Paolo Rumiz and Maria Grazia Cucinotta the year in which the Festival tied itself to Unicef.
This last passage of yours brings us back to the other aspect that we previously left pending, the bond with the territory.
From the beginning we have involved the territory and some significant realities. I am thinking of the organizers of “Giornate della laicità” programme, which is dedicated to critical thinking and civil and citizenship rights. In addition to the connection with local institutions (I could also add the Loris Malaguzzi International Center – Reggio Children and many others, especially schools), we have also expanded the scope of the Festival, which this year will also have significant moments in Cavriago, Vignola and other locations in the city.
Christofer Nilsson, “Balladen”, Sweden/France, 2023, 13’13’’, video still frame courtesy Reggio Film Festival
That emotional whirlwind with which we began this conversation leads me to ask you what is included in the months of the year in which there is no Festival.
In the preparation periods between one edition and the next, the Cine Club Reggio is active in organizing the next edition (which, as I was telling you, is already planned at the end of the current one with the identification of the future theme) and above all we are also proud to make the most important and awarded short films available in the libraries of the area (both in the municipalities of the Bassa Reggiana and in those of the Apennines), free of charge.
Speaking of awards: the Festival includes quite a few.
We must keep in mind that, in the selection time window, about two thousand short films arrive, from which we select the two hundred that have impressed us the most (and that are naturally relevant to the theme, even if we have a ‘free’ themed section for the others), and then make about eighty of them officially visible. In addition to the various festival sections, we also have important and increasingly noteworthy collateral sections, such as the one dedicated to regional creativity.
Lucija Mrzljak, Morten Tšinakov, “Eeva”, Estonia, Croatia, 2022, 15′ 58”, video still frame courtesy Reggio Film Festival
Two thousand short films (so less than 30 minutes) from all over the world that you watch in English and then subtitle in Italian. Speaking of themes, can you mention some that you have addressed in the past?
Since 2002, we have talked about mutations, female discrimination, city (a theme closely linked to urban realities), travel (both mental and physical), De André (a passion that, together with that for theater, Luca Pignatti shares with Alessandro Scillitani, co-founder of the Festival and current Director – ed.), food in its various facets, the earth as an environmental and sustainability theme, to which we are particularly attached. At the beginning the Festival (and until 2006, that is, until the fifth edition) was national, then we decided to grow further by broadening our gaze to creativity from allover the world.
What you just expressed seems to me to be a key concept.
We really want to emphasize that, thanks also to the directorial ability of those who send us the film, we discover social and cultural aspects that are rarely talked about (or not talked about at all). This is one of the elements of richness that makes us so dependent on the Festival and the organization of this event.
Arianna Lerussi, “Everything” series, 2013, courtesy of the artist
Is there a technical thread in the Festival call?
Short films, therefore lasting less than half an hour, that can participate in the Reggio Film Festival must be fiction works. There are no documentaries and perhaps this allows us to have a closer look at human nuances.
I imagine that you cannot tell us the theme of the 2025 twenty-fifth edition.
I would not reveal it even if there were, but I assure you that the theme is chosen immediately after the last event (so within the current year) and then included in the January announcement. The Festival is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue (Italian and English), in which the greatest effort was to obsessively check that no printing errors were reported. In addition to the screenings, the event is full of educational and informative moments, meetings and thematic insights into the error, declined in many and also surprising nuances. The in-depth conversation of the Reggio Film Festival takes place on the opening night, in the heart of Reggio Emilia, in a welcoming artistic context, enhanced by the only visual art exhibition included in the event. The Friulian photographer Arianna Lerussi, in fact, is on display with “Everything”¸ a selection of shots also having the theme of error. It is an exhibition of photographs in which the subject is cut, out of focus, mutilated: the effect is to reveal a significant detail that, in an academically perfect photograph, would have been lost within the formal rigor.
Info:
Reggio Flim Fetsival – XXIII edition
4 – 10/11/2024
Various locations between Reggio Emilia, Cavriago e Vignola
www.reggiofilmfestival.it
I am Giovanni Crotti and I was born in June 1968 in Reggio Calabria to be reborn in June 2014 in Piacenza, the city where I live. My income is guaranteed by digital consultancy, and I then spend it largely on art and letterature: I have been and am a content curator and organizer of cultural events for artists, galleries and institutional spaces, as well as a writer of exhibition reviews, creatives of every era and books.
NO COMMENT