The Sicilia Queer filmfest kicks off the season of film festivals in Sicily which promote culture, tourism and the diffusion of international cinema in all its forms of art, entertainment and industry, promoted by the Coordination of Film Festivals in Sicily (FCS).
“The Sicilia Queer filmfest marks the opening of a film festival season that is not only convincing, but full of a special electricity. Targeted programming that addresses crucial issues of the present and universal themes, a new idea of citizenship, social justice, personal rights and freedom – declares Cateno Piazza, president of FCS- The Festivals present in the Coordination today represent cinematographic events of great prestige, a true heritage of skills and experience, an extraordinary event production machine, which every year present international films, directors and performers, offering a total experience: they involve, entertain and they educate the public on a wide range of social, environmental, cultural and ethical issues.”
The Coordination of Film Festivals in Sicily, FCS, which brings together 29 of the most important festivals on the island, will be present in over 23 Sicilian municipalities with 150 days of cinema involving all Sicilian provinces, between May 2024 and March 2025.
“The Sicilia Queer filmfest is a festival explicitly dedicated this year to two Palermo activists who passed away in recent months, Rosi Castellese and Luigi Carollo, partisans for the defense of people’s rights and tireless builders of bridges and relationships, whom the festival intends to pay homage to with the his job”comments Andrea Inzerillo, artistic director of the Sicilia Queer filmfest.
The official opening of the fourteenth edition of Sicilia Queer filmfest – Saturday 25 May, at the Cinema De Seta – is entrusted to the national preview of Problemista (2023), a surreal, overwhelming and dazed comedy produced by the two-time Oscar winner Emma Stone and starring by a cult actress like Tilda Swinton, who leads the film debut of the comedian nominated for four Emmy Awards Julio Torres.
The Festival program includes 8 feature films for the competitive Nuove Visioni section, while 10 short films are in competition for the Queer Short section. A complete retrospective and national preview – in collaboration with Lago Film Fest – in the Presences section explores the cinema of Argentine director Matías Piñeiro, a free filmmaker and singer of love, loved by cinephiles all over the world and capable of creating a corpus of one-of-a-kind works. The director will be present in Palermo to present his films, starting with the national premiere of the long-awaited tú me abrasas (2024), inspired by Cesare Pavese’s Dialogues with Leucò.
The awards ceremony, scheduled for May 31st, will crown the choices of the three juries involved in the Festival, and will be followed by the absolute preview of the fashion film produced by the Palermo fashion house Casa Preti; followed by the repeat of the winning film and the closing party scheduled at “I Candelai”, with the live performance of NZIRIA in collaboration with the Ypsigrock festival of Castelbuono and the drag performance of Santa Rosalia, Leila Yarn and Caso
