Thursday, 16 NOVEMBER
PROGRAM | THURSDAY 16 NOVEMBER
Diego Abatantuono in Lecce for “Improvvisamente a Natale mi sposo”
Special Event INCinema
Films accessible to people with sensory disabilities
“The Moor”
“Dirty, Difficult, Dangerous”
Golden Olive Tree Competition |Cristina Soldano Award
Mario Verdone Award| “Disco Boy”
Special event premiere in Room 1, at 8:30 p.m., for the 24th edition of the European Film Festival directed by Alberto La Monica: Diego Abatantuono and director Francesco Patierno will meet with the audience at the Multisala Massimo to present Improvvisamente a Natale mi sposo. Enrico Magrelli will moderate.
Lorenzo, who as every year waits for his family at his hotel for Christmas, announces that he is getting married. His daughter Alberta and loyal collaborator Otto, however, are convinced that the bride-to-be is a gold digger and they team up to find out the truth about her. Starring Diego Abatantuono, Violante Placido, Carol Alt, Michele Foresta, Nino Frassica, Elio. The film will be released on 6 Dec. by Notorious Pictures.
In Room 2, at 21. 00, INCinema special event featuring two films accessible to people with sensory disabilities: Dafne Di Cinto’s short film The Moor (Italy, 2021) and Wissam Charaf’s feature film Dirty, Difficult, Dangerous (France, Italy, Lebanon, Qatar, 2022), screened with subtitles for deaf and hearing-impaired persons and audio description for those who are blind and or visually impaired. Presentation will be by INCinema Artistic Director Angela Prudenzi and its creator Federico Spoletti—moderated by Massimo Causo.
In Room 3, at 6 p.m., the screening of films in competition for the Golden Olive Tree – Cristina Soldano Award continues with Copenhagen Does Not Exist by Martin Skovbjerg (Denmark, 2022). After his girlfriend disappears, a young man agrees to be locked up in an apartment to be interrogated by her father. Davide Di Giorgio will present a meeting with the audience in the presence of actress Angela Bundalovic. At 8:30 p.m., same room, Zden?k Jiráský’s I Don’t Love You Anymore (Czech Rep., Romania, Slovakia, 2023) will be presented. Thirteen-year-old Marek shoots videos with social themes, making him an outsider among his classmates. He befriends Tereza, but soon his adolescent games spiral out of control with a simulated kidnapping, culminating in his running away from home. Davide Di Giorgio will moderate the Q&A session with the director.
For the Mario Verdone Award, in Room 2, at 6:30 p.m., will be the screening of Disco Boy by Giacomo Abruzzese (Italy, France, Belgium, Poland, 2023): Aleksei, a Belarusian fleeing his past, reaches Paris and enlists in the Foreign Legion to obtain a French passport. In the Niger Delta, Jomo, a young revolutionary, fights against the oil companies that have devastated his village. His sister Udoka dreams of escaping. Their destinies will intertwine, across borders, life and death.
In Room 4, at 6:30 p.m., Davide Rizzo and Marzia Toscano’s After the Bridge (2023) for the Cinema & Reality section. The film tells the story of Valeria Collina, an Italian woman converted to Islam, whose life was shattered by the death of her son Youssef, a member of the jihadist commando that left eight dead on London Bridge.
The tribute to Roman Polanski, “Protagonist of European Cinema,” continues in Room 1, at 6 p.m., with Venus in Fur (France, Poland 2013): auditions for Thomas’ new work take place in a Paris theater and prove to be unsuccessful. None of the candidates possesses the necessary style for the leading role: then comes Vanda, unbridled and brazen, having everything the director detests. The actress, however, is perfect on stage, and the audition goes on until it triggers in Thomas a real obsession…
In Room 5, at 9 p.m., for the retrospective on Micaela Ramazzotti, “Protagonist of Italian Cinema,” Pupi Avati’s The Big Heart of Girls (2011) will be screened. First half of the 1930s, a peasant family, the Vigetti’s, has three children; the Osti family, on the other hand, are landowners who have made their fortune and live in a manor house with their three daughters, all to be married off. The Osti couple accepts that the handsome young Vigetti farmer courts the two older sisters with the intention of marrying off at least one of them. A period of dating begins with the two girls in the living room of the house, but one day the younger sister returns from the town where she had been sent to study, and it is immediately love at first sight between the two…
The tribute to Nico Cirasola continues with Bell’Epoker (2004) in Room 4, at 6:30 p.m.: It’s Bari, 1991. In the darkness of an auditorium two strange people wander around. There’s gasoline, rope and a match. In minutes, what remains of Bari’s once prestigious icon, the Politeama Theater, are flames, ashes and destruction. One person resists the instinct to flee, lingering at the door, amid astonishment and sadness. In his mind run muddle images of the history of the theater.
In Room 4, from 9 p.m., the short films of Festival in Corto will be screened: Federico Russotto’s L’Avversario and Reginetta (CSC Rome); Francesco Guarnori and Alessandro Marin’s Viaggi straordinari (CSC Milan); Federico Demattè’s Battima and Saverio Cappiello’s Faccia di Cuscino (Emidio Greco Award); Federico Emilio Cornacchia’s TART, Lorenzo Sepalone’s Nel cognome che ho scelto and Francesco Lorusso’s Quando si ritira il mare for Puglia Show.
The day will conclude with Festival Off at Cantiere Hambirreria, which will host at midnight, Classic the live & DJ Set by Fabio Tosti featuring Kimberly Covington vocalist. Classic House vinyl DJ set by DJ Producer Fabio Tosti and with a live performance by Kimberly Covington, among the most appreciated American singers of the moment.
Devised and organized by the Cultural Association “Art Promotion,” the European Film Festival 2023, within the framework of the Apulia Cinefestival Network 2023, is an initiative carried out by the Puglia Region, Apulia Film Commission and ARET PugliaPromozione as part of the intervention “Promoting the Puglia of Cinema 2023” with resources from the POR Puglia 2014/2020 – Axis VI – Action 6.8. and released resources from POR Puglia 2000-2006, Measure 2.1.
It is also realized with the support of the Ministry of Culture-Directorate General for Cinema and Audiovisual.
Recognized by the Ministry of Culture as an “event of national interest,” the Festival is a member of the Association of Italian Film Festivals and is organized with the support of the Municipality of Lecce and the University of Salento, and in collaboration with Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, S.N.G.C.I., FIPRESCI, S.N.C.C.I., National Short Film Center, Lecce Biblio-Museum Pole, and the Rotary Club of Lecce.
Media partners: Cinecittà News, Cineuropa, FRED Film Radio
Technical partners: Acqua Orsini, Agricole Vallone, Augustus Color, Futuro Remoto Gioielli, Liberrima, Quarta Caffè, Rai Cinema Channel
