An evening to celebrate Cecilia Mangini, the driving force behind the Festa di Cinema del reale e dell'irreale, and to support the 2022 edition. On Sunday 10 July, in the magical setting of the Castello Volante in Corigliano d’Otranto (Lecce), an event of great symbolic significance will draw in audiences eagerly awaiting the festival dedicated to documentary film and perspectives on the reality of the world.
“Invisible Things. Awaiting the Festival of Real and Unreal Cinema” is an “overture” that “sets the tone” for the nineteenth edition, and is also a manifesto: the new, yet another beginning of a great adventure fuelled by tenacity and love for the local area, a classic of the Apulian summer that brings together the most experimental artistic projects in the ‘Heel of Italy’, within the framework of an event capable of broadening horizons, breaking down stereotypes and raising questions.
The evening is conceived, organised and co-produced by Big Sur, OfficinaVisioni and Cinema del reale in collaboration with Castello Volante and the Municipality of Corigliano d’Otranto; an initiative of the Apulia Film Commission and the Puglia Region – Department of Tourism, Cultural Economy and Territorial Development, funded by the AFC Foundation’s autonomous budget and regional resources from the extraordinary plan “Custodiamo la Cultura in Puglia 2022”, produced as part of the Apulia Cinefestival Network initiative.
From 8 pm, a co-creation project by young artists, a tribute to Cecilia Mangini and
the Queer Market Show will set the scene for the packed programme of the Festival of Real and Unreal Cinema, which will return to bring the Castello Volante and the village of Corigliano d’Otranto to life from 20 to 23 July.
During the evening (free admission), the programme for the new edition of the Festival of Real and Unreal Cinema will be unveiled, and season tickets for the festival’s four evenings will be available for advance purchase at a special price.
“Cose (in)visibili” is a magical and auspicious title, evoking the art of revealing reality and making the invisible appear, against the backdrop of widespread suffering within the cultural system which, nevertheless, spurs the Festival to return with even greater vigour, whilst continuing to question the meaning and the real cultural impact that a festival can have on a region and its community.
“We are living through a critical moment for the survival of cultural events in Puglia,” comments the festival’s artistic director, Paolo Pisanelli – ‘Ours is a challenge born of a firm determination to uphold the dignity of cultural work and to commit ourselves to continuing to bring people together, foster creative exchanges, and reflect upon and take action against the environmental, cultural and economic impoverishment of the region.’
We are returning to our roots, to the precious legacy of thought bequeathed to us by Cecilia Mangini, ‘the rock woman of documentary’, the great pioneer of Italian documentary filmmaking who passed away in 2021, and who, from the very first editions, has been the backbone and ‘guiding star’ of the Festival.
8 July, in fact, coincides with an ideal ‘Festival for Cecilia’, a heartfelt and fitting tribute that draws on the filmmaker’s own perspective and her own words, with the screening of *Il mondo a scatti* (2021, 89’), Cecilia Mangini’s final documentary, co-directed with Paolo Pisanelli, artistic director of Cinema del reale.
The evening will also provide an opportunity to preview the ‘PPP – Sette scatti’ project, featuring photographs taken by Cecilia Mangini of Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1958, which will be exhibited at Castello Volante from 20 July alongside previously unseen documents bearing witness to the creative partnership between the two.
The documentary “Il mondo a scatti”, produced by OfficinaVisioni and Istituto Luce Cinecittà in collaboration with Rai Cinema, made its debut at the Venice Film Festival during a special pre-opening event for Notti Veneziane organised by Giornate degli Autori, the Bookciak Azione! Award and Isola Edipo.
HERE is the trailer: https://www.comingsoon.it/film/il-mondo-a-scatti/61397/video/?vid=38105
After fifteen years of collaboration and friendship, the film serves as a definitive retrospective of Mangini’s work as a photographer and activist documentary-maker, revisited and recounted alongside Paolo Pisanelli. A journey through the boundless universe of archives and stories, reopened after decades of oblivion, examined and scrutinised, amidst surprising finds and discoveries. It is also a non-rhetorical exploration of the meaning of the image, and of the history of analogue photography set against the speed of digital production.
A film in vignettes that weaves together images of today and yesterday, stills and moving images, through a dialogue between two photographer-filmmakers who reflect on the visible and invisible aspects of the world: Cecilia, an unstoppable 90-year-old photographer, documentary-maker and screenwriter, is filmed by Paolo, a photographer, director and curator of cultural events.
Not just cinema, but also the visual and performing arts as they meet, challenge one another and provoke reflection: this has always been the way to transcend the boundaries between different artistic languages, an approach also revisited in ‘(In)visible Things’, featuring works from the artist residency conceived by Big Sur and realised as part of the ‘UCreate’ project with various international partners and with the support of the European Union.
The residency, in collaboration with Castello Volante and La Festa di Cinema del reale, involved eight artists (Caterina Dufì, Danilo Billerman, Gaia De Luca, Federico Rizzo, Maria Giovanna Sodero, Sasha Fumarola, Simona Anna Gentile, Sofia Leo), with the aim of uncovering the hidden stories of places and people in Corigliano d’Otranto, through a process of co-creation and exploration of the concepts of identity and gender equality alongside the local community.
UCRATE places co-creation and the arts at the heart of its project as a means of promoting intercultural dialogue, social cohesion and a sense of belonging to an inclusive European society.
The works created will be exhibited for a week at the Tabaccaia in the Castello Volante in Corigliano d’Otranto. “Cose (in)visibili” is also the art of evoking the infinite plurality of reality, celebrating diversity in the face of the homogenisation of feeling and of all narratives.
To round off the evening, the highlights will be a drag performance by Billie Kill and Alister Victoria, followed by a DJ set by Discovenganza, organised by Queer Market Show.
Queer Market Show was conceived by Franz Di Pietro (Clitox, Stigmalab) and embraces the influences and sentiments of our region’s cultural ferment. A multi-sensory journey through cries of protest and odes to joy, through symphonies and fusion, the ancient and the contemporary.
