MOSTRA INTERNAZIONALE DEL CINEMA LIBERO

[INTERNATIONAL FREE FILM EXHIBITION]

Founded by the writer Leonida Repaci, the screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, Bruno Grieco and Giampaolo Testa, the Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero [International Free Film Exhibition] was born in 1960 in Porretta Terme.

It was baptised by a promoting committee composed of some of the most authoritative and committed men on the Italian cultural scene at the time: Michelangelo Antonioni, Alessandro Blasetti, Luigi Chiarini, Giacomo De Benedetti, Vittorio de Sica, Giuseppe De Santis, Federico Fellini, Francesco Flora, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Carlo Lizzani, Vasco Pratolini, Leonida Repaci, Roberto Rossellini, Mario Soldati, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Luchino Visconti, and Cesare Zavattini.

Right from its inception, the Mostra proposed itself as an “anti-festival”, “free from political mortgages, mercantile and advertising interference, compromises and diplomatic concerns” and as an antithesis to more high-profile festivals, such as the one in Venice.

Thanks in part to the commitment and enthusiasm of Luciano Pinelli, Carlo Maria Badini, Christian Democrat MP Giovanni Elkan and a few locals, such as Giampaolo Lorenzini and Oreste Zagnoni, unreleased films, often off the traditional circuits, circulated from the very beginning.

During its first three editions (1960, 1962, 1964), the Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero was characterised as a genuine competition for films, documentaries and scenarios. In 1965, in anticipation of the protests that affected the festival institutions, it was decided to abolish all forms of competition, focusing on monographic cycles with the screening of films and documentaries that were always very attentive to the relationship of filmmaking to society.

Two appointments that marked the history of the Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero and that of Italian cinema are the premiere of the film Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion), by Elio Petri (1969) and in 1972 the first Italian screening (after the one held in New York) of the film Ultimo tango a Parigi (Last Tango in Paris), by Bernardo Bertolucci.

Editions

1st EDITION, 1960 – AWARDS

Golden Naiad for best film: Romeo, Julie and tma (transl. Romeo, Juliet and Darkness), by Jiří Weiss, Czechoslovakia 1960. Award for Best Scenario: Lorenza Mazzetti, Il sole va per suo conto; subsequently published by Garzanti under the title Il cielo cade (The Sky Is Falling).

2nd EDITION, 1962 – AWARDS

Golden Naiad for best film: The guns of trees, by Jonas Mekas, USA 1961.

Golden Naiad to the best short film: ex aequo Varo di una nave (Birth of a ship), by Jan Lomnichi and Inchiesta a Carbonia [Enquiry in Carbonia] by Lino Micciché.

Golden Naiad for best educational short film: Mazzacurati, by Michele Parrella.

3rd EDITION, 1964 – AWARDS

Golden Naiad: Dio o Diabo na terra do sol (Black God, White Devil) by Glauber Rocha (Brazil)

Golden Naiad for best short film: Scorpio rising by Kenneth Anger (USA)

Special prizes were awarded to the British selection consisting of The loneliness of the long distance runner by Tony Richardson, The caretaker by Clive Donner, and The leather boys by Sidney Furie. To the short film Sucre amer [Bitter Sugar] by Yan Le Masson.

Silver Hand ex aequo to Something Different by Věra Chytilová (Czechoslovakia) and A tout prendre (released as All Things Considered in English Canada and as Take It All in the United States) by Claude Jutra (Canada).

Best female performance to Johanne for A tout prendre by Claude Jutra and Tom Courtney for The long distance runner.

4th EDITION, 1966

Cuban documentary film retrospective.

Free cinema retrospective.

Personality of young Swedish cinema.

New trends in Yugoslav cinema.

The Belgrade documentary school.

Solo exhibition of Kenneth Anger.

5th EDITION, 1969

Review of young Hungarian cinema.

Review of Cuban newsreels.

Documentaries on guerrilla warfare (Angola, Guinea Bissau, Vietnam, Laos, Venezuela, the “tupamaros”).

6th EDITION, 1971

Under the influence of the cultural climate of 1968, four French film magazines (Cahiers du cinema, Cinema 71, Cinetique, Positif) were invited to Porretta to present their idea of political cinema.

In addition to the selected films, there is an exhibition dedicated to French director Jean-Luc Godard on the period not screened in Italy from 1954 to 1968.

The edition sees the world premiere of La classe operaia va in paradiso (The Working Class Goes to Heaven), by Elio Petri

7th EDITION, 1975

The seventh exhibition, held from 15 to 21 December 1975, was moved to Bologna due to organisational and financial problems

This edition is dedicated to contemporary Greek cinema.

8th EDITION, 1977

The eighth festival returns to Porretta Terme from 12 to 15 November 1977.

The programme is dedicated to Lev Kuselov, the Russian director who pioneered Soviet cinema in the 1920s.

9th EDITION, 1978

New Bulgarian cinema.

The cinema of the Third Reich.

Contemporary French cinema.

10th EDITION, 1980

The tenth festival, held from 10 to 14 December 1980, was dedicated to Contemporary Polish Cinema.

11th EDITION, 1981

Edition entitled Journey on the Rhine: Identities on European Cinema, dedicated to a retrospective on Austrian, Belgian, French, Swiss and German cinema.

12th EDITION, 1982

This edition sees great emphasis on electronic image and colour. Among the many films presented are: One from the heart by Francis Ford Coppola and Passion by Jean-Luc Godard