Once upon a time…
Sara Mantovani May 17, 2011
“…there was a sweet little girl. Everyone who saw her liked her, but most of all her grandmother, who did not know what to give the child next. Once she gave her a little cap made of red velvet. Because it suited her so well, and she wanted to wear it all the time, she came to be known as Little Red Cap”.
What Grimm brothers or Perrault (in Little Red Cap case) did for us in our childhood, Biografilm Festival is doing for us in our adulthood: telling great stories.
Biografilm is the first international event entirely devoted to biographies and life tales. The aim of Biografilm Festival is to find and to show life paths and experiences, big and small stories that influenced and determined the world history.
Biografilm Festival individuated, and followed with a perfect timing, the peculiarity of the biopic genre and its audience, for some reason not explored before in Italy: the cultural quality of the biopic genre is intended as a highly positive value from a communication perspective, in a moment during which there’s a return to values the like of widening, commitment and a general increasing request of quality cultural products.
Overall Biografilm Festival has detected and answered to an audience that finds in biographies a chance of deepening and reflection about complex and current themes. The festival has anticipated and contributed to enlarge the interest about biographies that has pervaded the recent cinematographic production: over 350 films received by the artistic direction for the 2010 edition witness the vitality of the genre.
Biografilm Festival which takes place in Bologna between the 10th and the 20th of June will showcase, within a wide and articulated program, a selection of recent feature and short films, both fictional and documentaries, cinema and TV productions. The festival promotes, as well, tributes to directors who, with their work, have contributed to the development of the biographic genre, and schedules national and international premieres of brand new films, along with related special events, thematic programs and retrospectives.
Carrying on the original project successfully launched in 2005, Biografilm Festival featured important tributes to Charlie Kaufman, DA Pennebaker, Peter Whitehead and had the pleasure to present to the Italian audience movies such as L’épine dans le coeur (The Thorn In The Heart) by Michel Gondry, Synecdoche, New York by Charlie Kaufman, Taking Woodstock by Ang Lee, The Night James Brown Saved Boston by David Leaf, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson by Alex Gibney, Joy Division by Grant Gee, Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog, Citadel by Atom Egoyan, The Devil and Daniel Johnston by Jeff Feuerzeig and Veruschka by Paul Morrissey, The Cats of Mirikitani by Linda Hattendorff, Reign Over Me by Mike Binder and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Garth Jennings.
Each day of the festival is devoted to a specific personality, with a programme of screenings, meetings and special events. In the past editions, Biografilm focused on personalities like John Lennon, Peter Sellers, the Warner Brothers, Groucho Marx, Klaus Kinski, Jean Seberg, Hunter S. Thompson, Walt Disney, John Belushi, Andy Warhol, Thomas Alva Edison, Fela Kuti, Syd Barrett and many others.
Most of the events are taking place at Village in Manifattura delle Arti, a completely renewed complex which will host seminars, conferences and.. parties where they all lived happily ever after!
