The 6th Bif&st edition will take place March 21st to 28th, 2015 and it will showcase a real full immersion in the great cinema of Fritz Lang. Ettore Scola is President of the Festival, ideated and directed by Felice Laudadio.
A vast Retrospective, curated by Laudadio and by History of film scholar Carlo di Carlo, will be dedicated to the author of Metropolis, M, the trilogy of Dr. Mabuse, Fury and Hangmen Also Die, who had to run away from Germany since the early beginnings of the Nazi Regime in 1933 and died almost 40 years ago (August 2nd, 1976). The Retrospective, which benefits from the cooperation of the National Film Library and of the Bologna Film Library, includes almost the entirety of both the German and American films realized by the Austro-Ungaric director; together with eight movies inspired to/by Metropolis and realized by authors such as Jean-Luc Godard, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Luc Besson. The Retrospective will feature up to 50 titles, including the renowned edition of Metropolis – newly edited, color dyed and with a score composed by Italian composer Giorgio Moroder (three times Academy Award Winner) together with iconographic and documentary materials coming both from the Apulia Regional Mediatheque and from RAI Teche.
As always, the Festival will also be a window over the best of the current cinema. The Teatro Petruzzelli will host evening screenings of the non-competing International Premières: eight movies of great spectacular appeal and most recent production; together with 12 titles of the Panorama International competing section: movies produced all over the world during last year and absolutely unreleased in Italy before – to be screened at the Teatro Petruzzelli during the afternoon. A Jury, composed by 30 thoroughly selected spectators and chaired by producer and distributor Valerio De Paolis (founder of the BIM Company), will assign the Bif&st 2015 Award to the best movie among the ones selected with director Enrico Magrelli.
The Federico Fellini Platinum Award for Cinematic Excellence will be assigned during the Closing Gala Night, March 28th , to a leading personality of World Cinema, who, on that very same morning, will hold the last of the Cinema Master Classes at the Teatro Petruzzelli. Seven more major film directors, all of them foreigners and whose names will soon be announced, will star in the other Classes.
Together with the International movies and the Retrospectives, the third bearing timber of the Bif&st, whose Managing Director and Project Manager are Angelo Ceglie and Giovanni Antelmi, has always been the Italian Cinema.
ItaliaFilmFest/Feature Films (that does not include debut works) will exhibit the best Italian feature films distributed in the cinema halls or screened at major National and International film festivals from March 2014 to March 2015. A jury, composed of delegates designated by the National Union of Italian Cinema Critics (SNCCI) and composed by critics Franco Montini (SNCCI President), Vito Attolini, Paola Casella, Francesco Gallo, Andrea Martini, Cristiana Paternò and Federico Pontiggia will confer the following awards: Mario Monicelli Award to the best director; Franco Cristaldi Award to the best producer; Tonino Guerra Award to the best film subject; Luciano Vincenzoni Award to the best screenwriter; Anna Magnani Award to the best leading actress; Vittorio Gassman Award to the best leading actor; Alida Valli Award to the best supporting actress; Alberto Sordi Award to the best supporting actor; Ennio Morricone Award to the best score composer; Giuseppe Rotunno Award to the best cinematographer; Dante Ferretti Award to the best production designer; Roberto Perpignani Award to the best editing; Piero Tosi Award to the best costume designer.
First, as to timing, of the major Italian Cinema venues – the Bif&st has each year anticipated later acknowledgments. During 2014 only, the competing films screened in the Bari Film Festival have obtained 20 (out of 20) David di Donatello, 20 Silver Ribbons and 16 Golden Ciak.
The Jury of the ItaliaFilmFest/First or Second Time Directors section, composed by 30 spectators and chaired by critic and professor Jean Gili, director of the Italian Film Festival of Annecy, will confer the Francesco Laudadio First or Second Time Director Award to the best Italian debut movie – selected amongst the ones distributed in cinema halls or screened in National and International festivals between March 2014 and March 2015.
The Bif&st is a project co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Puglia 2007-2013
