Teacher, silver screen expert, author, film critic. This is who Benedetta Pallavidino is, who in these days of the end of the school year is focused on only one thing: the Adelio Ferrero Festival (she is on the board), with an attached prize for those who write (or would like to) about screenplays and directors every day. It is an Alexandrian event with the potential to become increasingly broader. “We’re working on it,” she confirms.
Pallavidino, let me immediately satisfy my curiosity: how do you imagine «Ferrero» will be in ten years’ time, when the prize will celebrate half a century?
«I imagine it and I would like it with more women involved, both in this event in particular and in the world of criticism and cinema in general. It becomes tiresome to repeat it every time, but it’s true that I feel this need. I imagine it with increasingly high-level guests and guests. I would like it to become a festival that looks and is looked at beyond Alessandria. I would like it to become a point of reference at least at Piedmontese level with a good public appeal. Above all, I would like it to become increasingly recognizable and open, in every sense.”
Open also understood as outdoors, outside the rooms?
«Yes, I would like to expand the festival venues. The cinemas certainly, but also the squares, the streets. Also because the idea of viewing has changed a lot in recent years, films are enjoyed on mobile phones and tablets and we therefore need to give that extra something to the experience. We need to give the public the pleasure of sharing.”
Do you have a specific example in mind?
«For the sector, yes, “Il Cinema Ritrovato” in Bologna. They show the great classics in Piazza Maggiore, which is always full. They are films that that audience has certainly already had the opportunity to see, but they willingly see them again precisely because of the place, for the moment.”
So, is the cinema in the Cittadella, an experiment from a few years ago, functioning in Alessandria, or are the events in the courtyard of Palazzo Cuttica going in the right direction?
«They are extremely interesting experiments, especially the one in via Parma: I have always seen chairs all occupied. It makes us understand that if the event is captivating, people will participate.”
What kind of events is this city a little bad at?
«I teach middle school, at Alfieri in Spinetta, and therefore I respond with full knowledge of the facts that Alessandria lacks meeting places for very young people. I think of a space that allows them to discuss and discover new things. I imagine a cultural social centre, a lively oratory, a games room, a park with many activities. In short, strong aggregation points that are open, free, multidisciplinary. But they were also missing when I was that age, and now I’m 32, it’s not something that has gotten worse.”
And what do you think has gotten worse?
«The station gardens have gotten worse, there you can see the negative passage of time. It is a decayed place. When I go through them I don’t feel at ease, I have witnessed some unpleasant scenes. It’s a space that, today, I can’t stand.”
Tell me one you particularly love.
«I like that part of the historic center that goes from Via Milano to Piazza Santa Maria di Castello because I perceive it as halfway between what the city once was and what it could become. It is also a multicultural area, which is an aspect that I like and believe in a lot. I also like Piazza Genova, but as I’ve seen it in the last few days: full of kids and grandparents with their grandchildren.”
Also tell me a film location in this city: where would you shoot a scene?
«In via Bissati, in vicolo dell’Erba. But also on the Meier at sunset.”
What film genre do we fit into?
«Alessandria in the winter seasons is a noir. Something can happen around every corner. In summer it could be an existentialist film, those films with deserted streets, many silences, where the feeling of loneliness is perceived. Some works by Antonioni come to mind.”
But what genre would you like for this city?
«I wish it were a musical. With scenes full of people but not chaotic, with people of any age, ethnicity and gender living and singing in harmony, where there is nothing dissonant and where even the drama has positive implications.”
