The big screen is full of stories of dizzying rises and thunderous falls of industry tycoons, but the unsurpassed prototype remains Citizen Kanethe directorial debut of the twenty-five year old Orson Welles, still considered one of the most beautiful films in the history of cinema; the violence of the suburbs and metropolitan slums of this part of the world have become a common landscape of contemporary cinema, but it was with The hate by Mathieu Kassovitz that we discovered the Parisian suburbs and glimpsed, in the mid-nineties, the society that awaited us around the corner of the millennium. We dreamed and cried with the melodrama of the fifties, but it was François Truffaut who engraved on the face of a debutant Fanny Ardant, protagonist of The lady next doorthe extreme passions of a love wasThe American dream has been exalted by the seventh art, which has also been able to tell its dark side, like the one embodied by Tony Montana, the Scarface by Brian De Palma. And in its own way, a precipitate of theamerican dream he is also the lazy druggist of The Big Lebowski by the Coen brothers, a kind of star-spangled bull who preferred bowling to billiards. And the face of a real, Fellini-esque bull is that of Franco Fabrizi, one of the protagonists of Gadda’s A damn scam by Pietro Germi, the first Italian crime film and Claudia Cardinale’s first real acting test.
These are some of the titles that make up the programme of the 2024 edition of the Augustiniansthe film festival that opens on July 3 and that for over thirty years has accompanied the Rimini summers, among the longest-running cultural events that animate the historic center of the city between July and August, first in the garden of Castel Sismondo, then in the courtyard of the eighteenth-century complex of via Cairoli 42, where it is still located. It has always been an opportunity to recover or re-watch the films of the season just ended and so it will be this year too, but with an additional selection, which bets on one of the trends that is increasingly characterizing the cinematic offering of recent years: the return to theaters, in a restored or remastered version, of classics that have made the history of cinema, innovating its language, or which have marked the imagination of some generations of spectators. Frames from films that are known, at best, as simple titles or seen only in the smaller format of the TV or smartphone will therefore return to scrolling on the big screen of the arena.
Under the label Back to the screenthe copies brought back to life this year have been collected, while others, also restored in the past, help celebrate some anniversaries, including the 120th anniversary of the birth of the glorious production company Titanus. Each film will have a testimonial who will introduce it, not necessarily an expert or a scholar of the seventh art, even if among them there will be the directors of the film festivals hosted in our province. In no particular order: The first quiet night by Valerio Zurlini (Friday 9 August), the most Rimini film set in Rimini, will be entrusted to Alessandro Giovanardi, The Leopard by Luchino Visconti (Monday 12 August) to Gabriello Milantoni, Talk to her by Pedro Almodovar (Monday 15 July) to Andrea Guerra, while for the aforementioned The Big Lebowski (Sunday 28th July) and A damn scam (Thursday 11 July, free entry) Gian Luca Farinelli and Marco Bertozzi will speak respectively.
Also on stage will be: Simonetta Salvetti for Scarface (Wednesday 17 July), Isabella Bordoni for The hate (Wednesday 24 July), Alessandra Fontemaggi for The Lady Next Door (Monday 29 July), Tamara Balducci for The sky above Berlin (Tuesday 30 July), Alice Bigli for Fourth estate (Tuesday 6th August), Simona Meriggi for the 20th of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Sunday 18 August), Sabrina Zanetti for Lupin III – The Castle of Cagliostro (Tuesday 20 August), the feature film debut of Hayao Miyazaki, the Kurosawa of animation, whose latest work is also on display, The Boy and the Heron (Thursday 18 July). And again: Sergio Canneto for The Garden of the Virgin Suicides (Monday 22 July), Aldo Zangheri for Good view social club (Thursday 25 July), Davide Montecchi for Sighs (Friday 2 August), Roy Menarini for Donnie Darko (Saturday 17 August).
The sections of the schedule created with the participation of are confirmed Cartoon Club he was born in Meeting for friendship between peoples. Among the animated films, in addition to the aforementioned The Boy and the HeronAlso Mary and the Midnight Spirit (Friday 19 July) by Enzo D’Alò and the highly anticipated Inside Out 2 (Sunday 21 July) by Kelsey Mann, while the denunciation of the violence of ideology will be the common theme of the three works presented in collaboration with the Meeting: Tatami by Guy Nattiv and Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Wednesday 21 August) introduced by Otello Cenci, The Old Oak by the timeless Ken Loach (Friday 23 August) and The Children of Gaza by Loris Lai (Saturday 24 August).
It will be the turn of the program to open on Wednesday 3 July Booliron by Francesco Figliola, first stop on a tour that will bring the documentary on hip-hop music to the main summer arenas. The screening of the film will be preceded by a conversation between the director, Fabio Abagnato of the regional Film Commission, Claudio Cecchetto and rapper Stefano Word, who at the end of the screening will give life to a live musical with Dj Master Freez, McCallaman and ExtraPolo (free admission).
It could not be missing, on the centenary of the birth of Marcello Mastroianni, 8½ by Federico Fellini, presented by Davide Bagnaresi and placed towards the end of the exhibition (Thursday 22 August, free entry), a preview of the photographic exhibition which from October at Palazzo del Fulgor will be dedicated to the Mandrake of Frosinone, as Fellini affectionately called his alter cinematic ego.
