Tenth year of Baff (Busto Arsizio Film Festival), the cinema that deals with the crisis.

The Busto Arsizio Film Festival touches the tenth edition. In a year of great economic difficulty for the whole country, Baff is a certainty in the cultural survey of the city and not only. Also this year, therefore,it is going to take place by tradition during the first spring winds (from 24^th March to 31^st March). The presentation took place this morning in the auditorium of the Antonioni Cinematic Institute housed in Villa Calcaterra, an important residence in Busto Arsizio now become a symbol of what the Baff has managed to build in these laborious years, edition after edition. Political controversy apart on the support received from the city of Busto Arsizio, the festival is still alive as well as the desire of the organisers to amaze.

The topic of this year reflects strongly the current events that concerns the future and, in fact, is : “The future: from threat to promise”. Just the cinema will give that hope to look at a better future than what can be expected today  with the tools of politics and economics. The same culture town councillor Mario Crespi, wanted to take a cue from an initiative of “Il Sole 24 ore” (an Italian newspaper) that “has organised a workshop with the leading entrepreneurs of the country, for a “new economics culture” said the town councilor “an important and required step towards a re-launching of the economics with the belief that only with a greater culture can win the challenge of the future”.

A muted answer to criticisms of those who thought that an initiative such as Baff would fade into the background because austerity imposes it on us. Crespi has also stressed the importance of the cooperation of this event with the schools and, indeed, they will be thousands the students who will fill up the theatres during the festival week.

The festival confirms its vocation of showcase for all those movies that have not had a suitable release and launches again its competition “Made in Italy – Previews”, reserved for the first release movies or small distributions. The jury will be presided by Carlo Lizzani and composed of Elizabeth Missland, honorary president of “Golden Globes” assigned by the foreign press, by the director Aureliano Amedei, by the representative United Nations Film Festival Jasmina Bojich and by the journalist Tonino Pinto and by an Italian actress.

The presence of Jasmina Bojich on the jury confirms the collaboration with the festival linked to the UNO. A short film made in recent weeks by Andrea Castellanza, director of ICMA, written by a young high school student Francesco Catanzaro from a senior high school specialised in an artistic education, Paolo Candiani, and starring by Alessandro Haber will, in fact, be shown at the Tribeca Film’s New York on 22 March, two days before the Baff (preceding the screening of the restored version of Rossellini’s Rome open City). Gabriele Tosi, the patron of the event also announced that this year more than 50% of films that will be seen at the festival come from international co-productions and, therefore, for the first time the festival that, at the beginning was created to promote Italian cinema, will also look outside the boundaries. For the moment there is no expected special guest, as evidenced by statements from the same Tosi who are guided by the caution: "This year we want the stars to be the films that will arise in the competition Made in Italy"

 

Also confirmed are the two competitions for the screenplay with unpublished texts of feature films, and "Schools – Made in Italy" with the students that serve as spectators and jurors while in Piazza San Giovanni will return the tent Space Cinema with the class "sightings" to promote the binomial film and territory, presentations of books, short film screenings and collaborations between the ICMA and the Municipality of Busto Arsizio respect to the memory and Univa, which will organise a conference on "Film Production and Marketing".