This important edition of the Bergamo Film Meeting 2022 (March 26-April 3), to be celebrated in the best possible way: it is the 40th, round and lucky date, which returns to cinemas after two virtual editions. «We start again», director Angelo Signorelli rejoices, presenting the very rich program. And even if winds of war blow that do not leave indifferent, the program of the event does not move one iota.
The inauguration on 25 March will be an evening tribute to a great Russian cinema of the last century, Andrei Tarkovskij, whose restored copy of “Stalker” in “acousmatic projection”, an immersive sound irradiation system that offers “a ‘ totalizing cinematic experience “. The “cancel culture” hysteria has not taken root in Bergamo, which seems to affect indiscriminately these days even Russian artists and works that have nothing to do with the present. “He is an important author – continues Signorelli – for the history of cinema and because of the relationship he had with Italy, an exponent of a Russian culture that has reverberated and left important traces on the European one”.
And «let’s start again» is also the sigh of relief from Davide Ferrario, who is president of the Bergamo Film Meeting Onlus. «Today it is right first of all to celebrate: not only our 40 years, but also the return to the hall. We were born as a festival that looked to the future and we brought many talents to the city, emerging then today consolidated masters. This year we remember that first edition. But the gaze is already looking ahead: because after two years of pandemic and cinema seen on the platforms, it is unthinkable that everything will remain unchanged. The Festival cannot remain indifferent to change. The next edition, which will be the special one of 2023, of Bergamo Capital of culture with Brescia, will have to take note of it and tell about a different cinema ».
But in the meantime, ready to go: there is the Competition made up of 7 films as usual; the other competitive section “Seen up close” dedicated to documentaries; there are previews (including the latest film by jury president Volker Schlöndorff, “The Forest Maker”, and “Vortex” by Gaspar Noé), out-of-competition films and special screenings (the homage in 12 short films to the animated cinema of Emile Cohl for the occasion with live sound); there is the “Europa Now” section which celebrates very topical authors such as the Bosnian Danis Tanović and the Belgian Patrice Toye, whose most recent works are proposed accompanied by a personal summary that helps to shape their career.
But above all there is the homage to the past starting from the very year of the festival’s foundation: part of it is the retrospective dedicated to the naturalized French Greek director with Ukrainian ancestry Costa Gavras (guest of the festival despite the almost 90 springs) who in the The 70s-80s experienced its golden age. And it is part of the special celebratory section “1983: the year of contact”, made up of 12 titles that marked that year, from “The indiscreet charm of sin” by Almodovar to “The ballad of Narayama” by Imamura, “A nos amours” by Pialat, “Dans la ville blanche” by Alain Tanner, “Crime and punishment” by Kaurismaki. “To give you an idea of what it was like to go to the cinema then,” says Signorelli. The beauty of the cinema of the past also with the “Cult Movie” section dedicated to the stars of the Hollywood Golden Age, this year focused on Cary Grant.
If this year the program (160 titles!) Is all back to being screened in Bergamo’s cinemas, with the doubling of some sections “away” to Brescia and Milan, however, streaming is now confirmed as an acquired and indispensable value: the bergamofilmmeeting.stream platform where you can see the competing films, while Mubi will offer a further and wider selection of masterpieces from the 1980s.