Rome, 3 June. (askanews) – The second edition of UnArchive Found Footage Fest, a festival created by the Audiovisual Archive of the Workers’ and Democratic Movement (ETS, artistic directors Alina Marazzi and Marco Bertozzi) with the aim of enhancing the dedicated international artistic panorama, ended at the Intrastevere Cinema to the reuse of archive images in new film works, often highly experimental, with artistic and musical appendices at the Spanish Academy and Live Alcazar. In a week full of events, the Roman neighborhood of Trastevere was immersed in a multitude of visions, participatory meetings and live performances with a highly innovative language.
Approximately 4000 people were present in the room, in addition to the over 500 spectators of the live events, the 150 who came to attend the panels and the vast public who visited the installation works, with a strong involvement of the target audience between 25 and 34 years. An index of countertrend for cinema in theaters, which demonstrates a surprising interest among young people towards the creative and experimental forms of found footage cinema, also confirmed by the approximately 30,000 contacts on social media that the festival pages recorded during the days of the event.
‘The image observed, studied, analyzed and re-semanticised through the work on found footage – declared Vincenzo Vita, president of the AAMOD, in the closing ceremony of the event – leads to a different reconstruction of the reality filmed at the origin, which is remanipulated by the creative flair of the filmmaker as well as made comprehensible and identifiable by the technological eye of the new generations. With this festival and these data we are pleased to have been able to witness a reversal of the patterns, bringing the enjoyment back to a ‘slow’ system of perception and analysis of cinema.
‘It was not easy to select the works for our international competition among the hundreds that arrived – recalled the artistic directors Alina Marazzi and Marco Bertozzi – nor must it have been easy for the jury to assign the awards for this edition of Unarchive. A Festival attended by a highly participatory, attentive, diversified audience, capable of amplifying a cultural network in full extension. The hope is that these films can continue to circulate independently, to reach new contexts and involve an ever-increasing number of spectators.’
The international jury, made up of Bill Morrison, Firouzeh Khosrovani and Sara Fgaier, decreed the following winners (prizes in economic value):
UnArchive Award, for the best creative reuse to Amor by Virginia Eleuteri Serpieri (Italy / 2023)
The director alone collected the fragments, discovered how to put them back together and then carefully glued them together, one by one. In the end the image is recomposed, but it is no longer the same as before. Now it is more imperfect, and more precious.
Best feature film to Between Revolutions by Vlad Petri (Romania, Croatia, Qatar, Iran / 2023)
A work that masterfully weaves found footage into the narrative, creating the intimate picture of a friendship, that between Zahra and Maria, amidst the revolutions of their respective countries, Iran and Romania. Between Revolutions brings out the illusory nature of revolutions, the gap between political ideas and harsh reality. The film is a lyrical portrait of the rise and fall of ideologies. Politics and intimacy mix in the short duration of the film, with a clear editing structure and the poetic correspondence between Maria and Zahra.
Best short film at Solaris, Mon Amour, by Kuba Mikurda, Laura Pawela, Marcin Lenarczyk (Poland / 2023):
A work that transports us on a journey of re-imagination. Using radio adaptations of Stanislaw Lem’s film Solaris and a collection of around 70 Polish educational films, the directors skillfully create a work of alchemical transformation, generating, with exceptional imagery, editing and sound design, a sci-fi reflection on memory and loss. With this material, inner space and deep space fold in on themselves, the universe exists both within and beyond the body, and personal stories are intertwined with the fate of the species.
Honorable mention to Film Negativo / Positivo by Federica Foglia (Canada, Italy / 2023)
A collage work of delicate beauty and grace that casts erotic film stars of the silent film era as creative spirits, goddesses who stimulate eroticism through the natural world, in its insects, flowers, leaves and seeds.
The student jury, a collective coming from various universities and artistic academies and chaired this year by the director Giovanni Piperno, assigned the awards (prizes with symbolic value, with free use of three minutes of archive materials for the next works created) :
UnArchive Award, for the best creative reuse to “Picture of Ghosts” by Kleber Mendonça Filho (Brazil / 2023)
For the director’s ability to amalgamate private, public and film archive materials of different formats into a poetic narrative. Transfiguring the architecture of the city and his home into a place of creative worship. It starts from the figure of the ghost to restore vitality to memory.
Best Feature Film “Amor” by Virginia Eleuteri Serpieri (Italy / 2023)
For the poetry and originality of the narrative articulation that combines a journey of intimate mourning and the testimony of an entire city. Remember with strength and delicacy the importance of a common and precious good that embodies life itself, water, the river…
Special Mention – Best Feature Film “Manifest” directed by Angie Vinchito
For the extraordinary ability to narrate the tragic condition of Russian children and adolescents imprisoned in a violent and repressive system, drawing from the vast ocean of social media. The young protagonists of this film are the voice of a powerful choral story that needs to be heard by the whole world.
Best Short Film “L’architetta Carla” by Davide Minotti with Valeria Miracapillo (Italy / 2024:
For the strength of the clash between industrial images and personal visions, between alien voices and poetic discourses, in the sign of a grotesque fracture in which engineering and architecture impose themselves as visions capable of sometimes controlling, sometimes revolutionizing the world.
Special Mention – Best Short Film for “We should all be futurist” directed by Angela Norelli (taly / 2023)
With refinement and great irony the director managed to overturn the meaning of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s words for antelitteram female emancipation, making the patriarchy collapse under her own words where it has rested for centuries, congratulations.
Among the most attended events of the festival, we should remember the in-depth meetings with the directors Eyal Sivan (Israel), Bill Morrison (United States), Sergei Loznitsa (Ukraine) and Kamal Aljafari (Palestine), of which some of rarest and most significant works in found footage work.
UnArchive Found Footage Fest is conceived and produced by the Audiovisual Archive Foundation of the Workers’ and Democratic Movement ETS (AAMOD); in collaboration with Archivio Luce – Cinecittà; with the recognition of MIC – general direction for cinema and audiovisual; with the patronage of the Municipality of Rome, the Spanish Academy in Rome, the Embassy of Quebec, the Polish Institute of Rome, the Universidade de Lisboa, the Faculdade de Belas-Artes, the Centro de Investigação e Estudos em Belas-Artes (CIEBA), the Embassy of Canada; Partner NABA – New Academy of Arts, IULM University; with the collaboration of Center Pompidou Studio Azzurro, IDFA, Locarno Film Festival, MUTA Festival Internacional de Apropiación Audiovisual, Pordenone Docs Fest, Cineteca di Milano, CSC Sicilia headquarters, Roma Tre DAMS University, La Sapienza University of Rome, Tor Vergata University, Accademia of Fine Arts Rome, Academy of Fine Arts Bologna, Academy of Fine Arts Naples, John Cabot University, Zelig Bolzano, IUAV University of Venice, SudTitles, Alpe Adria Cinema – Trieste Film Festival.
Thanks to: Casa Internazionale delle Donne, Academy of Art in Szczecin Biblioteca Totiana Lab80 Cinescatti Archivio Aperto Casale del Giglio, the staff of Cinema Intrastevere, Alcazar Live.
