About

THE FESTIVAL

“The program of the festival includes a series of films embracing the issues of  environment and social justice, films that we have been selected through a careful research in Italy, the United States and many other countries around the world,” says the festival’s artistic director Silvia Bizio. “We have documentaries like Downwind, which exposes the tragic consequences of the nuclear tests on people in Nevada, Utah and Arizona in the United States, and River, narrated by Willem Dafoe, which explores the majestic rivers of the world and how humans have irreversibly damaged them; and again, documentaries on social and immigration  justice such as Seeking Asylum, on the inhumane realities of the treatment of refugees on the Mexico/US border, and Dream’s Gate, a courageous investigation by a Kurdish journalist among the YPJ women fighters against ISIS. We have a thriller like the Italian La California, directed by Cinzia Bomoll and starring Lodo Guenzi and Angela Baraldi, which has as its backdrop the air pollution of careless industries in the Emilia plain nicknamed  ‘La California’, as well as lighter films for the general audience such as The Last Film Show, by the Indian director Pan Nalin, and the British Polite Society, in which a young aspiring stunt-woman of Pakistani descent — in London — goes to great lengths to prevent the wedding of her older sister between robberies and martial arts.”

Prominent figures in the film world, who are also politically and socially engaged,  will take turns on the stage of the Radar Theater in Monopoli to address topics such as the fight against the trafficking of endangered wild animals, with activist Andrea Crosta talking about his “undercover” mission to combat this crime and will present the National Geographic documentary Sea of Shadow, about a criminal racket decimating delicate fish and illegal dealings between Mexico and China.

Film stars Marisa Tomei and Alfre Woodard will talk about what it means to be an actor with a conscience in Hollywood, while actor/producer  Matthew Modine and Lawrence Bender (producer of many Quentin Tarantino films) will talk about the climate crisis and the damage caused by global warming. Modine will also present the first eight minutes of the upcoming Ripple Effect documentary series about the consequences of human actions on the ocean and land and what we can do to remedy the impending disaster.

There will  be forays into the cinema of the future, with experimental filmmaker  Alessandro Parrello talking about his short Tesla, of which he’ll show a few minutes in immersive virtual reality through special Oculus goggles in the lobby of the Radar cinema, and Luisa Rizzo, the Italian “drone racing” champion,  demonstrating  how to fly her drones in the Rendella Library in Monopoli.  Actress, comedian and writer Sabina Guzzanti will present her new book ANonniMus, in the same library on June 6th.