"Discoveries" the new competition section at the 65th Festival dei Popoli
With the arrival of newly elected president Roberto Ferrari, the Festival dei Popoli, Nov. 2-10 in Florence, is preparing for its 65th edition with "Discoveries," a new competitive section dedicated to international short and medium-length films made by young directors to provide a privileged space for experimentation and originality in film forms.
Roberto Ferrari, executive director of the Museo Galileo in Florence and former director of the Tuscany Region's 'Culture and Research' Directorate (2015-2020), was elected by the members' meeting that renewed the board of directors, a body that will remain in office for the next three years, 2024-2027. According to the results of the vote, Gianluca Guzzo, Lucia Landi, and Barbara Setti were confirmed as directors, and Alessandro Boschi, Maria Bonsanti, Azzurra Morelli, and Diana Marta Toccafondi were elected among the newcomers. Confirmed for 2024 is the artistic direction of Alessandro Stellino and the organizational direction of Claudia Maci.
"I am honored by this appointment ," said Ferrari , "and grateful for the confidence the Assembly has placed in the new Board of Directors, which took office on April 12. Special thanks to those who preceded me (Prof. Vittorio Iervese and the previous Board of Directors), the supporting institutions and all those who work for the Festival of Peoples. Working together we will increasingly characterize the Institute, the festival and the archive as a laboratory capable of offering throughout the year a space for free and open thinking based on the cinema of the real."
"With the new presidency ," said artistic director Alessandro Stellino , "we are also announcing some new additions to the program such as Discoveries, the new competitive section dedicated to shorts and medium-length films made by young filmmakers, with a focus on experimentation and originality of form. Documentary interprets reality and can do so in many different ways, which is why it is increasingly important to account for the variety of approaches and formulations that characterize it, often surprising and disorienting. We like to think of this new section as another place of discovery for the expression of new looks, new talents and new possibilities. As always, there will be on the program tributes to authors and auteurs who have marked the history of documentary filmmaking, keeping alive an eye to the future and to a cinema intent on recounting the transformations taking place, through the lens of social and political analysis, research and experimentation with languages."
