TRANSFORMATION, TRANSITION, IDENTITY IN MOTION
The Bolzano Film Festival Bozen – BFFB restarted 2022 with a new direction, a new board of directors behind it, a new energy and the desire to reinvent itself considering its specificity within the context of a territory such as Alto Adige / Südtirol. Rethinking it in its local, regional, national and international context. It is a question of understanding what the identity of the Festival is, what its present and future might be. It is a question of finding answers to quite a few questions, while also relying on some essential convictions.
What opportunities could be built? What is the function of a film festival nowadays? Or rather, what is the function of small or medium-sized festivals? What relationship is established with the territory in which it is located, with the city? One cannot therefore rethink a festival without finding new answers to these questions.
Surely a festival, never before as in this moment, grappling with an audiovisual universe in perpetual transition, can only assert itself if it builds a strong identity. It must become something unique. It must be an event, where the people involved, the spectators, the insiders want to attend because they feel at ease. It must be a moment of pleasure, of cultural, artistic, human, professional growth. Of course we are talking about a process of development, which cannot be exhausted in the space of a very first year of its new existence. How are these goals to be achieved? We are working on it.
But what does it mean to talk about identity today, for a festival? Identity, function, objectives, geographical contextualisation. These are organisms that cannot be static and are instead in perpetual motion. Knowledge and confrontation with one’s own world necessarily pass through dialogue, the investigation of foreign worlds, with the outside oneself. All this also happens in cinema, in cinematic storytelling where countless films move away from local realities that may seem obvious and open up to the world, to worlds. Even in cinema, therefore, identities, interests, ethnic specificities, are increasingly mixed, eluding easy categorisation.
How should the festival be re-invented? What is its potential? What importance will the relationship between festival and territory(s) have?
Certainly the BFFB already has a long history behind it as well as its own specific film identity inseparable from the city, the region, the wider context where it grew up and where it found its audience.
The particularity of this territory, even its complexity, the dialectic between the local and the global, between the need not to forget the territory and the need to re-invent itself also in an international context, constitute the great potential, the great opportunity of a future BFFB. A territory with multiple identities, even discordant ones, cannot but have a vocation that is (certainly) local but also (above all) international.
The BFFB must therefore be a festival capable of dialogue with other realities, other contents, local and not necessarily local. With other festivals in Italy (but not only) or in the German-speaking world, for example. With other regional realities outside South Tyrol / Südtirol. With European institutions. In a sphere of cultural but also structural/economic growth.
Cinema? Of course. Can we talk about an (almost) hybrid festival?
Certainly the strengthening of local identity, of being rooted in the territory, and of its careful dialogue with the world, necessarily passes through intense and further collaboration with various local institutions and initiatives. Even very different ones. I am not referring to those institutions, those passionate partners who allow and will allow the BFFB to exist and grow. I am also referring to those cultural initiatives, to the different artistic contexts that exist in Bolzano, in the field of music and dance for example. Or theatre. Collaborations that are potentially invaluable, important for making a film festival a ‘place’, a moment that is also hybrid.
With which structures will the Festival be in constant dialogue? Will it be a festival that deals with existing cinema and cinema under construction?
The quality of the content, the support of the institutions and partners, the attention and growth of the audience. In Bolzano and the surrounding area (also during the year) I imagine the Festival, the Festival created and run by the Filmclub, as part of a Casa del Cinema / Filmhaus. A virtual but somehow real construction, with strong foundations, made up of passionate institutions in dialogue with each other: the BFFB of course, and then the IDM / Film Commission Südtirol, the ZELIG film school, with the careful involvement of the university as well. Recognised and prestigious institutions on a local, national and international level. I see the BFFB as a meeting point capable of satisfying different needs. A festival (not only) for cinema and audiovisual enthusiasts, but also for professionals, for those who see in cinema a desire and a perspective, an expressive need and also a profession. A project that is already being implemented.
Dealing with cinema means dealing with existing cinema but also with cinema under construction, with cinema that will be. A festival attentive to the industry. Industry, business, local institutions that reposition themselves thanks to international and local activities.
A festival that does not forget the relationship with the film professions. Without forgetting film criticism and its evolution.
What kind of cinema will the Festival focus on? Will it be attentive to its different languages? To its history? What will be the relationship between the public and the Festival?
The artistic identity of the present and future BFFB? Even at the level of programming, BFFB will certainly not have to remove its local identity – also understood as the identity of a festival that is attentive to the dynamics of the cinematographies of the different countries bordering the Alps.
I believe that BFFB must deal with contemporary cinema. That it should be attentive, curious, capable of observing and involving the present and future of the audiovisual universe. That even in its competition it should consider all cinema without necessarily labelling it as fiction, documentary and everything that moves between these imaginary poles. That it can involve a wide audience, without renouncing a strong artistic identity and a deep interest in the languages of cinema. And that in the near future it does not forget the history of cinema either: talking about the history of cinema also means talking about the near past, it means proposing consistent homages, important retrospectives of contemporary authors.
The BFFB should be recognised by its programme. By the relationships built within it.
Capable of reaffirming the festival’s entire identity thanks to the dialogue established between its individual components.
Territory, cinema, borders, minorities, contaminations: will it be a festival capable of dialogue with similar and parallel universes?
Developing the Festival’s past identity certainly means continuing to deal with the cinema of borders, a universal cinema of cultural and geographical complexities. A cinema of minorities but also of minor languages, on a European and international level. Of contaminations, of citizenships and identities in movement. Which this year will also focus on the surprising cinema of Spanish Galicia. Without forgetting that borders are not only strictly geographical. But they can be dictated by genre, ethnicity, economic capacity, and the complexity of the intersectional structure.
In the context of a Festival born and bred in a dynamic border region, capable of dialogue with parallel universes, perhaps more difficult, perhaps very different. A dialogue with parallel universes that is now indispensable and is already taking place, even or especially in the context of cinema under construction, because this is what contemporary cinema often talks about.
Kino als Ort / Cinema as a place…cinema…a word of enormous richness…
In many languages, the word that defines the work of cinema and the place of projection, of the enjoyment of this work, is identical: in Italian, cinema is a place but also “l’arte del cinema”. In German, the same word Kino is used to define a place, a cinema, but as in Italian also ‘das Kino’, cinema as art, as product, cultural, industrial, artistic.
Events and the desire for festivals, “Audience Strategies”…how can you define the relationship of the future BFFB with its audience and with “cinema as a place”?
I insist on the need to create engaging events, to create an intense ‘film and hybrid place’, capable of developing an intense relationship with the audience. Also working on ‘audience strategies’ that take into account the particularities of the Festival’s territory and territories. All this will be increasingly important for the Festival world. Of course… a festival’s relationship with its audience cannot be passive.
It is precisely the festivals that have promoted, directly or indirectly, the definition KINO ALS ORT in recent years. In the years of advancing streaming – which no one wants to demonise, streaming must also be seen as an enormous chance to promote film culture – the cinema space must be revalued, revitalised, reinterpreted. A place of enormous cultural, human, sociological importance. A fundamental element of the urban fabric of the city and the territory. A place where cinema, a film festival become a meeting place, a shared experience.
In general… how should festivals be rethought, especially small- and medium-sized ones? What is and will be their function? How to build the ‘brand’ of the future BFFB?
Rethinking festivals of any size means being aware of this irreplaceable identity. Perhaps it is precisely the small and medium-sized festivals that can take advantage of this fascinating opportunity. Festivals, or rather, the network of festivals in their complexity, have long since become – even before the advent of the large streaming platforms – an alternative distribution circuit to that of traditional cinemas – dependent for the most part on the choices of distributors and world sales. Places where one can see significant works that are often not distributed. The future BFFB must also be absolutely aware of this important political-cultural factor. A festival born on a profitable local fabric that thanks to a strong and specific programming can also grow internationally by entering into dialogue with the most diverse cinematographies. By creating its own ‘brand’, its own positioning within the international festival scene. A festival in which there will be no room for any kind of discrimination, a festival convinced of the richness of diversity, inclusive. Actively sustainable also in its way of promoting cinema and cinema under construction.
Vincenzo Bugno, BFFB Artistic Director
