People and Religions – Terni Film Festival is an international film festival, which takes place annually in November at the CityPlex Politeama Lucioli in Terni, Italy and at many other venues around the town. It deals with interfaith dialogue, spirituality in cinema, immigrant integration, visual education and activities for prisoners. For two consecutive years, the festival was awarded the Medal of the President of the Italian Republic. It has been organized by ISTESS, Institute of Theological and Historical-Social Studies, directed by Stefania Parisi. Honorary president of the festival is Krzysztof Zanussi, Polish film director; the artistic director is Arnaldo Casali. Promoted by the diocese of Terni Narni Amelia (currently led by Bishop Giuseppe Piemontese) and by the Episcopal Conference of Umbria, the festival enjoys the patronage of the Municipality of Terni and the Pontifical Council for Culture, with the support of the Umbria Region, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, as well as the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Terni e Narni.
The festival oversees screenings for inmates of the Terni prison and matinee performances for students of elementary schools, middle and high schools, as well as universities; national and international premiers, meetings with authors, concerts, theatre performances, exhibitions and an international competition for feature films, short films and documentaries. One of the objectives of the festival is the integration of immigrants. Hence, every year the festival focuses on a selected region of the world, actively involving foreign communities in screenings, dance, musical performances, meetings and food tastings of typical regional products.
Since 2006 the Godmother of the festival is Maria Grazia Cucinotta. Among the many personalities who attended the first twelve events are Enzo Enzo Decaro, Ellen Stewart, Enrico Brizzi, Vincenzo Cerami, Lina Wertmuller, Roberto Citran, Renzo Rossellini, Guido Chiesa, Liliana De Curtis, Emanuela Aureli, Silvano Agosti, Arnaldo Colasanti, Angelo Longoni, Adelmo Togliani, the sand artist Gabriella Compagnone, Luis Bacalov, Philomena Lee (character of the film Philomena by Stephen Frears which is played by Judi Dench) as well as Dario Edoardo Viganò, prefect for the Vatican's Communications, who was president of the jury in 2008 and in 2011 and one of the authors of the book Tra cielo e terra [Between Heaven and Earth] and who received the career award in 2014. The festival is twinned with the Religion Today Film Festival in Trento and constitutes a network of European interfaith film festivals, including the Days of Cinema and Reconciliation of Notre-Dame de la Salette in France and the Sacrofilm Festival of Zamość in Poland.
It also constitutes a part of the network of film festivals of Umbria including the Perugia Social Film Festival, the Narni Cinema, the Montone Umbria Film Festival and the Spello Cinema Festival. In addition to the Best Film Award, Best Short Film and Best Documentary, the festival also awards the Jury Grand Prize, the Award for Best Film of Umbria and the awards for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Soundtrack, Best Photography, Best Effects, and the Angelo alla Carriera, work of art by the sculptor Fernando Dominioni.
Every year one evening of the festival is dedicated to St Francis of Assisi, the first Christian to peacefully convey a dialogue with another religion. All of this takes form of premiers, meetings, retrospectives and shows. The festival, now for the thirteenth consecutive year, has been gathering about 1000 spectators a day for over 9 days every year. Among the award-winning artists there are Alessandro D’Alatri, Krzysztof Zanussi, Paolo Consorti, Franco Battiato, Giuliano Montaldo, Lech Majewski, Jerzy Stuhr, Eugenio Barba, Amos Gitai, Ascanio Celestini, David Rondino, Nino Frassica, Elio Germano and the PFM Band. The festival has also produced two documentaries: Lo Spirito di Assisi in 2006 [The Spirit of Assisi] and Sarajevo Adesso in 2012 [Sarajevo Now], and a book: Tra Cielo e Terra [Between Heaven and Earth]. There is also another book related to the festival: Cinema, artisti e religione [Cinema, artists and religion] by Arnaldo Casali that constitutes a collection of interviews and opinions of, among others, Angelo Branduardi, Giobbe Covatta, Corrado Guzzanti, Sabrina Impacciatore, Neri Marcorè, Davide Rondoni, Carlo Verdone, Nanni Moretti and Alice Rohrwacher (Pendragon, 2011h).
History
The festival was conceived in 2005 by the then Bishop of Terni Vincenzo Paglia (spiritual counsellor of the community of Sant'Egidio, currently the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life) with the aim of creating a personal and religions dialogue through cinematographic art: a "meeting of civilizations" in response to the "clash of civilizations" raised after 11 September.
The first event was inaugurated on the Saturday, 19 November 2005 in the film studios of Papigno, at that time owned by Cinecittà and Roberto Benigni, who had used them for the filming of La Vita è Bella [Life Is Beautiful], Pinocchio, La Tigre e la Neve [The Tiger and the Snow] and the TV special L’ultimo del Paradiso.
The Godfather of the Festival was Carlo Fuscagni, founder of the Umbria Film Commission and then president of Cinecittà Holding. Artistic direction was done by Carlo Chatrian, who was then the deputy director of the Alba Film Festival and currently is the director of the Locarno Festival.
In 2006 the artistic direction responsibilities were handed down to Arnaldo Casali, Matteo Ceccarelli and Alessandro Minestrini. During that time the ‘friendship’ was initiated with Maria Grazia Cucinotta and Krzysztof Zanussi, who in 2011 became the Honorary President of the Festival. Zanussi was also the founder of the network of European film festivals. During the festival he met on stage Riccardo Leonelli, an actor who was later starring in his films: Interior Voices (2009) and Foreign Body (2015).
In 2009, in the context of the Focus on Africa, the project of the director Paolo Bianchini Il sole dentro [The Sun inside] was presented to the public for the first time. This film focused on the story of Yaguine and Fodè: two children from Guinea who died in 1999, hidden in the cargo compartment of an airplane heading to Brussels, where they wanted to deliver a letter "to the Rulers of Europe." This project was then still only in the stage of screenplay preparation: a scene was played live by Francesco Salvi (Italian actor) and two children from the Terni African community. In the following years, premiers of the film were shown and in 2012 the work was finally completed.
In 2010 the festival presented the show Il Giullare di Assisi [The Jester of Assisi] with an unprecedented San Francesco comedy (based on historical sources and studies) played by Francesco Salvi and Fabio Bussotti. On this special occasion, Fabio Bussotti played the role of Friar Leone (at the age of 21), just upon his return from winning the Silver Ribbon Award for Liliana Cavani's Film.
In 2011, Liliana Cavani, receiving the Angelo alla Carriera Award, announced her intention to shoot a third film on St Francis of Assisi, which was then released in 2014. In the same year, the screenwriter Pierluigi Frassineti joined the artistic direction and in 2013 he was joined by film director Oreste Crisostomi. Since 2014, the artistic direction has returned to Arnaldo Casali.
In 2015 the festival opened in the aftermath of the Paris bombings. A Polish video maker, Maria Lis, a student of the Paris Film School, who the lived in one of the areas affected, reported that she had luckily escaped the massacre because she had left Paris for the Terni Festival. The focus of that year's Festival was on Morocco and Islam, in response to the wave of racial hatred and Islamophobia following the attack on the "Charlie Hebdo" magazine and the murder of a Terni boy by a Moroccan drug dealer in the square right in front of the ISTESS centre.
This climate of tension led to special safety measures during the festival (in particular the inauguration day attended by the President of the Region, Catiuscia Marini, and the Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti) and the controversy raised by the Italian newspaper "Libero" for the involvement of the Young Muslims of Italy Association.
In 2016, a short film focused on the Paris bombings: Salaam StDenis2015 by Federica Pacifico took part in the competition. Also in 2016, the festival was preceded by a special event at the Lyrick Theatre in Assisi, where the French film L’ami [The Dream of Francis] was given its world premiere. The film was also screened at the festival, introduced by a meeting with the medievalist historian Chiara Frugoni and the tenor Friar Alessandro Brustenghi who, for this occasion, performed the original melody of the Cantico delle creature [The Canticle of the Creatures], which he reconstructed himself.
Awards
The award for Best Film was created in 2007, and for Best Short Film in 2012. The Award for Best Actor and Best Screenplay in 2014, Awards for Best Director, Best Photography, Best Soundtrack and Best Umbrian Film were established in 2016. From 2008 to 2010 the Prize awarded to Films outside of the competition was awarded by the public, while in 2016 the Jury Grand Prize was established among all categories in the competition. A special mention for production was set up inB. In 2016 special prizes were also awarded to Babele and Istess for the Jubilee of Mercy.
Best Film
2007 7km da Gerusalemme by Claudio Malaponti (Italy)
2008 Corazones de mujer by Davide Sordella & Paolo Benedetti (Italy-Marocco)
2009 Silent Wedding by Horatiu Malaele (Romania)
2010 Velma by Piero Tomaselli (Italy)
2011 The mill and the cross by Lech Majewski (Poland)
2012 When day breaks by Goran Paskaljevic (Serbia)
2013 The priest’s children by Vinko Bresan (Croatia)
2014 Il sole dei cattivi by Paolo Consorti (Italy)
2015 Histoire de Judas by Rabah Ameur Zamesche (France), Biagio by Pasquale Scimeca (Italy)
2016 Dough by John Goldschmidt (Great Britain – Hungary)
2017 La metamorfosi (England)
2018 Une saison en France by Mahamat Saleh Haorun (France)
Best Director
2016 Maria Rosaria Omaggio for the film Hey you! (Italy)
2017 Guglielmo Poggi for Siamo la fine del mondo (Italy)
2018 Alessandro D’Alatri for In punta di piedi (Italy)
2021 Kazem Mollaie for the film The Badger (Iran)
Career Award
2006 Krzysztof Zanussi
2007 Franco Battiato
2008 Alessandro D’Alatri
2009 Giuliano Montaldo
2010 awarded but not delivered to Luigi Magni
2011 Liliana Cavani and Pupi Avati
2012 Jerzy Stuhr
2013 Eugenio Barba, Ryszard Bugajski and Renato Scarpa
2014 Dario Edoardo Viganò and Amos Gitai
2015 Ascanio Celestini
2016 Elio Germano
2017 Franco Cardini and Religion Today
2018 Terence Hill
2019 Alice Rohrwacher
2020 SacroFilm Festival
2021 Giobbe Covatta
2022 Ninni Bruschetta
2023 Matteo Garrone and Abel Ferrara
Public Prize / Jury Grand Prize
2008 Pa-ra-da by Marco Pontecorvo (Italy)
2009 Interior Voices by Krzysztof Zanussi (Poland)
2010 Sul mare by Alessandro D’Alatri (Italy)
2016 L’ami by Arnaud Louvet & Renaud Fely (France)
Best Screenplay
2014 Le cauchon de Gaza by Sylvain Estibal (Palestine)
2015 Il giorno più bello by Max Nardari (Italy)
2016 Cambio di destinazione d’uso by Edoardo Siravo and Massimo Reale (Italy)
2017 Max Chicco for Amore grande (Italy)
2018 Eleonora Ivone and Angelo Longoni for Apri le labbra (Italy)
Best Actor
2014 Nino Frassica & Luca Lionello for Il sole dei cattivi (Italy) and Francesco Salvi for 10th & Wolf (USA)
2015 Roberto Herlitzka for Nell’ora che non immaginate (Italy)
2016 Emanuel Cohn for The little dictator (Israel)
2017 Paolo Graziosi for Amore grande (Italia) and Jerzy Stuhr for Il cittadino (Poland)