The Bellaria Film Festival’s Digital Archive for Italian Independent Cinema was presented to the press today, which involves the creation of an open source and participatory online platform where users will be able not only to consult materials (including early works by Luca Guadagnino, Michelangelo Frammartino the first short films by Giorgio Diritti, Costanza Quatriglio, Francesco Costabile, Giacomo Abruzzese or even Simone Massi and Susanna Nicchiarelli), but also give life to their own profile, comment on the films, add information, mark keywords in individual frames, create customized lists of films or scenes, share posts.
Sponsored by the Municipality of Bellaria Igea Marina and Approdi srl with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the project was presented today in the Cruise Hall at the Ministry of Culture in the presence of Undersecretary for Culture Lucia Borgonzoni, Mayor of Bellaria Igea Marina and president of the Archives for Italian Independent Cinema Filippo Giorgetti and Sergio Canneto, Approdi Administrator, managing body of the Archives for Italian Independent Cinema.
Officially founded in 1990, but already conceived at the end of the 1980s, when the Bellaria Film Festival (until 2005 known as Anteprima per il cinema indipendente italiano” was directed by an exceptional “triumvirate” composed of Morando Morandini, Enrico Ghezzi and Gianni Volpi, the Archive thus opens to a wider audience thanks to modern digital technologies, as Borgonzoni pointed out, “Technology at the service of preservation and enhancement of memory. Thanks to this digitization project supported by the Ministry, a future is finally assured for the heritage collected over the years by the Bellaria Film Festival and even more so for the artistic research path developed along the trajectories traversed by Italian independent cinema, intercepted by the event. But not only that. The great history of our country – immortalized in the many small stories told in the films starring in the different editions of the kermesse – is thus transmitted to the new generations. A unique wealth, which from today is available to everyone.”
The project saw the digitization of more than 5,000 titles under the supervision of Alessandro Gagliardo, researcher and designer, restoring a valuable historical and cultural cross-section of Italian cinema. The Archives for Independent Italian Cinema, fully digitized, collects all the films selected and not selected in past editions of the Bellaria Film Festival. Among the authors in the archive, in addition to those already mentioned, are Daniele Gaglianone, Alina Marazzi, Agostino Ferrente, Corso Salani, Antonio Rezza, and Flavia Mastrella.
Also enriching the catalog is a lot of unpublished material, which will be unveiled to users with new publications on a weekly basis and featuring internationally renowned artists.
There will also be an official wiki dedicated to the Archives, where anyone can contribute freely by adding information, reconstructing the history of the Festival and offering new insights.
It is not just about preservation, then, but an archive in constant movement, just like the independent cinema it represents. In fact, at its base is a journey more than 30 years long, through the collection of documents that today are shared as an initial contribution to an open and constantly evolving investigation of Italian independent cinema, in digital format and accessible to all. Within the archive it will be possible to retrace this long journey year by year, reconstructing the memory of the Festival and its many artistic trajectories.
The platform was created through collaboration with the Linea d’Ombra Film Circle, through Next Generation EU funds earmarked for PNRR. Partners also include Hera, Romagna Acque and 4/Terzi APS.
“A project made possible by the technology and tools available to us today and even more so by the fundamental contribution and interest of the Ministry, which has recognized with its support the centrality of the BFF in the national film scene. A path that stems no less from those motivations and desire to improve that unite Approdi and the Municipal Administration, whose collaboration carried out in recent years has, from the very beginning, aimed at enhancing and making even greater a festival that will blow out 43 candles this year.” said Filippo Giorgetti.
