Festival d’Arte di Palazzo Venezia

FESTIVAL PROJECT.

The Festival at Palazzo Venezia is the work of a group that includes
Carlo Fuscagni, President; Claudio Strinati, Scientific Director; Rubino Rubini, Artistic Director; and Eugenio Donadoni, Executive Director. The Festival is organised by DOC FEST.
The Festival at Palazzo Venezia is an annual event; the first edition will last nine days, from 25 May through 2 June 2004, in Rome.

The Festival receives the direct and enthusiastic support of the Superintendency for the Museum Coalition of Rome, Claudio Strinati; the Lazio Region, Luigi Ciaramelletti, Assessor; the Province of Rome, Vincenzo Vita, Assessor; the City Council of Rome, Gianni Borgna, Assessor; the Dante Alighieri Society, Alessandro Masi; Istituto Luce, Andrea Piersanti; the National Film Library, Prof. Francesco Alberoni; RAI Educational, Giovanni Minoli; RAI Teche, Barbara Scaramucci; the Civita Association, Gianfranco Imperatori; and the S.I.A.E., Franco Migliacci and Stefano Micocci.

All this underscores the noteworthy impact of this initiative, on institutions through which we have already extended the winning ideas of the Festival at Palazzo Venezia throughout Italy, in the areas of art, culture and communications.

Providing a forum for showing and discussing cinema and documentaries on art means giving a voice to an entire production division, vast and worldwide, for which Italy is a natural setting, and also providing encouragement for the launching of “made in Italy” productions that can compete with the best international productions.THE

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

The competition is organised in 4 categories:

1. Films and documentaries about art
With the most important creations from 2000 to the present in the area of image-based “stories” on art-related themes: exhibitions, artists’ solo shows, restorations, events, investigations, TV programs, critical studies, photographers and photographic exhibitions.

2. Films and documentaries about artists
With the most important creations from 2000 to the present in the area of biographical “stories” and variously understood artistic experiences: memoirs, testimonials, archive documentaries, and artists talking about themselves and their work.

3. Films and documentaries on architecture
With the most important creations from 2000 to the present in the area of architecture understood as “art”, including documentaries on monuments, churches, museums, palaces, cities, villages, modern and contemporary architectural projects, restorations, “landscape” interventions, gardens, etc.

4. Art as experiment
With the most important creations from 2000 to the present in the area of visual research and experimentation, particularly involving schools and universities with courses in cinematography understood as visual art, as well as training and in-depth study of the creative phase and related techniques: essays and animation short subjects, experimental films, auteur documentaries, university essays.

Due to the high quality of the more than 200 works entered in competition, and the impossibility of accepting them all, the Festival Committee has established a special out-of-competition section called “Lo spirito del tempo” (The Spirit of Time), to include films not chosen for competition but worthy of particular attention and visibility.

The competing and non-competing sections of the Festival will feature approximately 140 films and documentaries from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Rumania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.

The 7-member International Jury presided over by Arnaldo Pomodoro will award three top prizes (1st, 2nd and 3rd for best film) as well as prizes for best photography, best editing and most innovative documentary. The top prize-winner will receive the work “Ricciolo d’oro” (The Golden Ringlet), a sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro.
Recognition will also be given to the winner of the “Spirit of Time” category, by the President and the Artistic Director of the Festival.
Finally, the best film about Italian art will receive a special plaque from the President of the Republic.

RELATED EVENTS

In addition to the international competition, the Festival at Palazzo Venezia presents various related events.

"Art and Communication" presentations and conference
From 26 May to 1 June, the Gardens at Palazzo Venezia will host meetings between the public and the most important artists, directors and producers in the sector. The Festival will also be an occasion to discuss the theme of communication in art today, in a conference with the patronage of UNESCO.

Retrospectives
The Festival also presents 3 related exhibitions using historic Italian archive materials from the Istituto Luce, RAI, the National Film Library of the Experimental Cinematography Centre, the Bologna Film Library, and the Olivetti Historic Archive, as well as rarities from private archives:

1) The art of building
The retrospective, curated by Antonella Greco, includes films on the world of architecture. It will be housed in Palazzo Firenze, headquarters of the Dante Alighieri Society.

2) 50 years of art on TV
The retrospective, curated by Anna Maria Cerrato, presents films on art with interviews with noted artists and critics, produced by RAI. To be held at the Aula Giubileo of the Lumsa University.

3) Filming art
The retrospective, curated by Paola Scremin, presents the world’s best productions about art from the 1930s to today.
These events are also designed to be presented following the Festival, shown in sites in the province of Rome, various provinces in Lazio and in other Italian cities, to provide a natural extension of the project’s plan of communication and public outreach.

"We are cinema"
As an outreach to schools and universities, an announcement will be sent out by 5 June by the Ministry of Public Education, for a competition for independent student productions about art. A special jury will award prizes of top-of-the-line camcorders to the 5 most important entries. Prizes will be awarded during the press conference presenting the 2005 edition of the Festival.

FESTIVAL ORGANISATION

As mentioned above, Carlo Fuscagni will act as President of the Festival, bringing to the initiative more than thirty years of experience in the field of cinema and television; Claudio Strinati will direct the selection of films in competition and related events, according to the projects’ scientific characteristics and their historic and cultural coherence; Rubino Rubini, a documentarian of art and culture films for many years, will identify and pre-select retrospective films, documentaries and exhibitions from all over the world; Eugenio Donadoni will oversee the entire executive process of the event.

We use the press offices of the Studio Begnini, in co-operation with the press office of the Superintendency of the Museum Coalition of Rome directed by Dr. Antonella Stancati, and Giovanna Visco of DOC FEST.

Institutional public relations are handled by Bianca Scotti, formerly institutional PR officer of the Fininvest Group and presently a partner in DOC FEST. Relations between the festival and television are handled directly by Carlo Fuscagni.

The international jury presided over by Arnaldo Pomodoro, will be made up of seven personalities boasting experience of the highest level in the fields of art, culture, the performing arts and communications.

The documentary films in competition have been chosen by a group of experts co-ordinated by Giovanni Oppedisano, Simonetta Cristiano and Caterina Galvano.
Films and documentaries for related exhibitions have been chosen by Paola Scremin, former RAI SAT collaborator and presently with the RAI DOC land-based digital network, and Anna Maria Cerrato, with the collaboration of Dr. Edoardo Ceccuti, director of the Istituto Luce archive, the attorney Angelo Libertini, director of the National Film Library of the Experimental Cinematography Centre, and Dr. Sandra Eichberg, who is in charge of the RAI’s “Customer Service” Film Library.

The entire Festival will be covered by RAI, with both clips on TG1 news and three early-evening direct broadcasts produced and presented by RAI DOC.

Films to be entered in competition have been gathered via contacts with television companies all over the world, MIFED, MIP, Prix Italia, and producers’ associations, with co-operation from the DOC/IT documentarians’ association, the broadcast structure for the European Union’s MEDIA program, and Eurovision.

For sponsorship, contacts have been made with major national and international companies operating in the sectors of communications, economics, finance, and cultural production.

OPENING AND CLOSING EVENINGS

The Festival’s public image will focus mainly on the opening and closing events, bringing together an important segment of the worlds of Italian art and performance.

On opening night, 25 May, there will be a national sneak-preview of Michelangelo Antonioni’s documentary “Lo Sguardo di Michelangelo” (Michelangelo’s Gaze), produced by Istituto Luce in collaboration with Gioco del Lotto – Lottomatica.

The final evening on 2 June will be held at the Teatro Argentina, with the award ceremonies, the showing of the prize-winning documentaries, and the presentation by the President of the Republic of the plaque for best film on Italian art.

We believe everything is in place to transform an idea into reality, to involve Rome, Lazio and Italy in the themes of art, culture and a sense of beauty, areas in which we unquestionably excel on an international level.