Festival 2021

The theme of the 2021 feStivale was the art of Resilience. Often resilience comes from holding hands while we rise and derive our individual sense of accomplishment as we help each other overcome our adversity.

Enjoy a few photos of our 2021 feSta and trailers of screened movies.

It Will Be Chaos

Life in Italy is thrown into a tailspin when refugees arrive by the thousands and the locals are left to fend for themselves. Eritrean survivor Aregai, trapped in the Italian faltering immigration system, goes underground to reach Northern Europe. Through his journey, intercut with the road trip to Germany of a Syrian family, the clash between the newcomers and the locals escalates in real time. Slated to air on HBO on World Refugee Day, “It Will Be Chaos” goes beyond statistics to illustrate the impossible decisions people and communities face daily with the ongoing Mediterranean refugee crisis, underscoring the imperative—increasingly less considered with the rise of right-wing populism—for unified international efforts to mitigate this tragedy.
Year: 2018
Director: Lorena Luciano, Filippo Piscopo
Screenplay: Lorena Luciano, Filippo Piscopo
Editing: Lorena Luciano
Cinematography: Filippo Piscopo
Music: Andrew Byrne, Matthew Rohde
Production: Lorena Luciano, Filippo Piscopo
World Sales: HBO Documentary Films

Bangla

Phaim, a young Muslim of Bangladeshi origin born in Italy 22 years ago, lives with his family in Rome’s multiethnic Torpignattara neighborhood. He works as a museum steward, and plays in a band. At a concert, he meets Asia, his exact opposite: pure instinct, and no rules. The attraction between them is immediate, and Phaim will have to figure out how to reconcile his love for the young woman with the most inviolable of Islam’s rules: no sex before marriage.
Year: 2019
Director: Phaim Bhuiyan
Screenplay: Phaim Bhuiyan, Vanessa Picciarelli
Editing: Roberto Di Tanna
Cinematography: Simone D’Onofrio
Music: Dario Lanzellotti
Cast: Phaim Bhuiyan, Carlotta Antonelli, Sahila Mohiuddin, Nasima Akhter, Rishad Noorani, Fabian Durrani, Sanija Shoshi Haque, Raja Sethi, Simone Liberati, Pietro Sermonti, Davide Ornaro, Alessia Giuliani, Milena Mancini
Production: Fandango, TimVision
World Sales: Fandango

Normal

Original and visually daring, “Normal” is a genre-bending documentary that reflects on how female and male identities are performed in everyday interactions, through a collage of immersive scenes filmed all over Italy. Capturing some of the most iconic moments in people's life, from birth to adulthood, “Normal” reveals how our gender defines us in most of the things we do, affecting our gestures, desires, behaviors, and aspirations. At the gym or at the beach; in a disco or in a church; at fun-fairs, public parks and beauty centers: “Normal” explores the collective choreographies of gender in ordinary and familiar situations, resulting in a ballet of moving images that depict the events while simultaneously meditating on their significance. Do we live in a world of constant performance? With its open form and contemplative pace, “Normal” offers a riveting experience into the spectacle of gender in everyday life, inviting the audience to question and unravel the very idea of normality.
Year: 2019
Director: Adele Tulli
Screenplay: Adele Tulli
Editing: Ilaria Fraioli with Elisa Cantelli and Adele Tulli
Cinematography: Clarissa Cappellani, Francesca Zonars
Music: Andrea Koch
Production: FilmAffair
World Sales: Slingshot Films

Michelangelo – Infinito | Michelangelo – Endless

“Michelangelo – Endless” is the first art movie ever made about the absolute genius of the Renaissance and history of universal art: Michelangelo Buonarroti. A docufilm for the big screen, where cinema and art’s worlds meet in order to trace the portrait of the secretive as well as troubled man, capable of sharp contrasts and strong passions, but also to show great courage when it comes to support his beliefs and ideologies. An immortal personality, one of the greatest artists the world has ever seen, whose rich and varied artistic production, became an everlasting sign in the history of universal art. This astonishing movie, shot with the most advanced filming technologies, retraces the main sculptural and pictorial production of Michelangelo, showing its most famous masterpieces: the Sistine Chapel ceiling, The Pietà, The David, The Moses, The Universal Judgement, The Saint Peter’s Dome, The Tondo Doni and other juvenile works.
Year: 2018
Director: Emanuele Imbucci
Screenplay: Sara Mosetti, Tommaso Strinati, Emanuele Imbucci
Editing: Sara Zavarise
Cinematography: Maurizio Calvesi
Music: Matteo Curallo
Cast: Enrico Lo Verso, Ivano Marescotti
Production: Sky Italia, Magnitudo Film
World Sales: True Colours

Mio fratello rincorre i dinosauri | My Brother Chases Dinosaurs

Jack dotes on his younger brother Gio, whom he believes has superhero powers—but the truth about Gio is a little different, as Jack discovers during his difficult teenage years in this warm family dramedy. Jack always wanted a little brother, and when Gio is born, he believes his parents when they tell him that Gio is a superhero with amazing powers. As he grows up, however, Jack realizes that his brother actually has Down syndrome, a condition that Jack decides to keep secret in high school. When the truth comes out, Jack learns that his brother’s energy, vitality, and unique perspective can indeed change the world—just like a superhero!
Year: 2019
Director: Stefano Cipani
Screenplay: Fabio Bonifacci, from the novel “Mio fratello rincorre i dinosauri” by Giacomo Mazzariol
Editing: Massimo Quaglia
Cinematography: Sergi Bartrolì
Music: Lucas Vidal
Cast: Alessandro Gassmann, Isabella Ragonese, Rossy De Palma, Francesco Gheghi, Gea Dall'Orto, Roberto Nocchi, Saul Nanni, Lorenzo Sisto, Arianna Becheroni, Edoardo Pagliai, Gabriele Scopel
Production: Paco Cinematografica, Neo Art Producciones, Rai Cinema
World Sales: Vision Distribution