BIF&ST – Bari International Film Festival reaches every year 70.000 spectators, and in just five editions, with its broad offer of the highest cultural level (our 2014 program presented 332 events over 8 days), it has grown to become one of the leading cinematic events in Italy. The 6th edition of Bif&st will be held March 21st to 28th, 2015.
Film director Ettore Scola is president of Bif&st. The director is Felice Laudadio, former director of the Venice Film Festival and president of Cinecittà Holding. The main venue is the prestigious Petruzzelli Theatre, included among the most beautiful theatres in the world, and 12 other city theatres are reserved to the festival.
The gala evenings of the festival in the historical Petruzzelli Theatre present International Premières (or, in any case, absolute premières for the Italian market) of highly spectacular movies, among which, in 2010: Nine by Rob Marshall, The Lovely Bones by Peter Jackson, An Education by Lone Scherfig, Away We Go by Sam Mendes, Bright Star by Jane Campion. In 2011: The King’s Speech by Tom Hooper, Morning Glory by Roger Michell, London Boulevard by William Monahan. In 2012: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Stephen Daldry, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by John Madden, Titanic 3D by James Cameron. In 2013: The Place Beyond the Pines by Derek Cianfrance, A Late Quartet by Yaron Zilberman, Stand Up Guys by Fisher Stevens, Mama by Andrés Muschietti, Stoker by Chan-wook Park. In 2014: Noah by Darren Aronofsky, The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson, The Other Woman by Nick Cassavetes, The Invisible Woman by Ralph Fiennes, Fading Gigolo by John Turturro.
During the past 5 years some of the guests awarded with the “Federico Fellini Platinum Award for Cinematic Excellence”, for having illuminated the cinema world with their artistic work, were: Marco Bellocchio, Claudia Cardinale, Dante Ferretti, Stephen Frears, Abbas Kiarostami, Nicola Piovani, Francesco Rosi, Barbara Sukowa, Bertrand Tavernier, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Giuseppe Tornatore, Margarethe von Trotta, Max von Sydow, Paolo Sorrentino, Luis Bacalov, Michael Radford amongst the others. Every one of these great professionals held a Master Class for a passionate audience of about 1.200 people each time gathered in the Petruzzelli Theatre.
Not only is the festival enthusiastically welcomed by local audiences, but also by the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI), which holds its yearly General Assembly in Bari during Bif&st dates. In fact, media coverage of the festival features both national and international journalists.
Bif&st also searches cinema and television archives for unreleased and precious documents on great personalities who were ambassadors of Italian cinema to the world: past Retrospectives dedicated to Federico Fellini, Alberto Sordi, Carmelo Bene and Gian Maria Volonté, are among the most extended ever tributed to these masters. In 2015 Bif&st will present a major retrospective of the great Austro-Ungaric author Fritz Lang, featuring almost his entire opus of European and American films.
In addition to non-competitive screenings, special events, workshops and meetings with the authors, Bif&st features 3 competitions: one dedicated to the best Italian movies produced over the last year; one to First and Second Film Directors; and one that stars a selection of 10-12 among the best films produced all over the world: the International Panorama competition.
