26TH FESTIVAL OF AFRICAN, ASIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA
DESIGNING FUTURES
MILAN 4-10 APRIL 2016
The Festival inaugurates its 26th edition in the
XXI TRIENNALE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF MILAN
With the Italian premiere of
Ryuzo and the Seven Henchmen by Takeshi Kitano
Now in its 26th edition, the FCAAAL is to date the first and only festival in Italy wholly devoted to the cinemas and cultures of the three continents.
Since 1991, the Festival has brought new expressive languages, not only of the cinema, to Milan from Africa, Asia and Latin America. This year the festival summarizes its cultural offer in the claim “Designing Futures” (inspired by the evocative title of the last Lagos Photo Festival) with the aim of transporting the audience to a new artistic, creative and innovative dimension, expressed by the directors and artists from the three continents.
On the occasion of the XXI TRIENNALE, for the first time the Opening night of the Festival, on 4 April, will be held at the Triennale in Milan, in the Teatro dell’Arte, with the Italian premiere of the latest film by Takeshi Kitano, Ryuzo and the Seven Henchmen. Kitano returns to comedy with a light and entertaining film. Seven elderly men, former yakuza, decide to put the “family” back together again, when one of them, Ryuzo, risks being tricked by the new generation of petty criminals without a sense of honour who swindle old age pensioners. The cast of the “magnificent seven” is made up of famous Japanese actors in their seventies, old acquaintances of connoisseurs of Japanese cinema and Kitano fans.
Designing Africa 3.0
In line with the concept of the XXI Triennale “21st Century. Design after Design” and the “Return to the Future” programme of events launched by the City of Milan for Spring 2016, the Festival presents for the first time in Italy the photographic exhibition “Designing Africa 3.0”, an extensive selection of photographs from the 6th LagosPhoto Festival, the first international festival dedicated to the visual arts and contemporary photography in Nigeria. The exhibition, curated by the director and founder of LagosPhoto Azu Nwagbogu and co-curated by Martina Olivetti of the African Artists’ Foundation, will be on show at the Festival Center in the West tollhouse of Porta Venezia.
“Designing Africa 3.0” explores the different aspects of the concept of contemporary
design in the African continent with the intention of creating a common thread running
between contemporary design and its most ancestral tradition. Africa, the cradle of human
civilization, has always been represented as a place without hope. “Designing Africa
3.0” aims to overturn the common image of Africa as a scene of wars, hunger and
disease, through images in which Africa represents a source of artistic creation, innovation
and possibility. The photographs in the exhibition will lead the viewer to reconsider the meaning of design today and in the future.
The theme of the cinema is very present and features in the series “[re]Mixing Hollywood” by photographers Omar Victor Diop and Antoine Tempé. The photos of [re]Mixing Hollywood are directly inspired by American and European films that have written the history of the cinema (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, American Beauty, Shining, etc.). Why the cinema? The cinema according to the two artists represents a universal art form which transcends all barriers, whether geographical, cultural or racial. Great films from the past, as well as more recent films, present famous scenes which have enormously influenced very different society trends. Featuring in these series are African cities, and a hotel that becomes the crossroads where cultures and origins from all over the world coexist and merge in a permanent cycle of reinventions and reinterpretations.
The film programme of the 2016 Festival
This year again the programme will highlight “event” films keeping a single competitive
section for fiction and documentary: the Windows on the World Feature Film
Competition. The “Flash” Special Events section will bring together the important noncompetitive
premieres of the Festival.
The films in competition will be judged by an International Jury made up of three experts
who will award the Prize for the Best Film of the Windows on the World Feature Film
Competition and by a Jury of Italian journalists who will award the Prize for the Best
African Short Film and to the Best Film in the Extr’A section dedicated to Italian films
shot in the three continents or on the themes of immigration to Italy.
The sections of the festival in detail::
Windows on the World Feature Film competition will offer 10 films – fiction and
documentaries: a careful selection of the most recent productions from the three
continents which privileges films by young directors.
Best African Short Film Competition hosts the best shorts (fiction and documentaries)
by directors from the whole of Africa and the diaspora. The section has the aim of
promoting young African directors at their debut in the cinema and showing the new
trends and experimentations in African cinema.
Extr’A is dedicated to films by Italian directors approaching other cultures with the
intention of relating and Italy which interprets cultural diversity. Films by Italian directors
shot in the three continents or films that have as their subjects immigration and integration
are selected for this section.
Flash section includes the films/events of the Festival: important Italian premieres that
present recent films by established directors, critically acclaimed films or that have won
awards at the major international festivals, the best of contemporary cinema that relates
and interprets the reality of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
And everybody’s laughing… dedicated to the best comedies from the three continents
selected with the collaboration of Gino and Michele of Zelig.
Thematic section: “Designing Futures” presents Italian premieres of films that reflect
the political, social and artistic revolutionary movements of contemporary Africa and
express the voice of new generations of metropolitan filmmakers born in Africa and who
have grown up in the world. The cinematographic expression of the festival’s claim, the
“Designing Futures” section will look at the present/future of the new African identity which
is expressed far from the cliché of the ethnicexotic tradition. Hybrid directors at the same
time proud of their roots, which they reinterpret with originality through the languages of all
the arts (cinema, photography, music and design).
The films in competition compete for the award of a total of about euro 11,000. Some
parallel prizes are for the acquisition of the distribution rights of short films. Some of the
feature films of the festival will be bought for distribution by COE for the Italian noncommercial
circuit and in particular for schools. The Festival thus has the concrete aim of
contributing to distributing the cinema of the three continents in Italy.
To consult the films in the catalogue, visit: coeweb.org/catalogo_film/
The meeting point for guests and public will be the FESTIVAL CENTER which hosts
exhibitions, initiatives, opportunities for entertainment and relaxation inspired by the
cultures of Africa, Asia and Latin America. There will be a bar in the meeting room.
The Schools Section of the Festival has morning screenings of the Festival’s films for
secondary schools. A Pupils’ Jury and a Teachers’ Jury will award two prizes to the best
short film. In the period running up to the Festival, the University Section organizes meetings to
promote knowledge about the cinemas of the three continents thanks again to the
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, the Università Statale, the Università degli Studi
MilanoBicocca, the Civica Scuola di cinema and the IULM. During the week of the festival,
the directors and guests will meet the students. The Festival is also an opportunity for
training for all the students who wish to take an active part in the various organizational
phases of the event.
“Dopofestival” seasons
Ever since the first years of the festival, a priority of COE has been to take part of the
festival to other Italian towns and cities, stimulating and boosting its annual activity of
showing films from emerging cinemas throughout the country. Postfestival screenings are
also scheduled at the Museum of the Cinema in Turin.
#Italy2050 contest
For the first time, this year the Festival is launching a video contest #Italy2050 to imagine
the multicultural Italy of the future and the role that technology has in society in
continuous change. #Italy2050 is the first cultural contest of Zooppa, the largest community in the word in the
area of crowdsourcing for the production of creative contents and is promoted by the
Festival in partnership with Lenovo, a world leader in the PC market as well as one of the
largest multinational corporations in technology, which has as its strong points the promotion of the “diversity” and multiculturality of its personnel, all over the world. The
contest will be online on Zooppa until 21st March and invites the creative community to tell
a story of the multicultural and technological Italy of tomorrow and the role played by
technology to break down distances and encourage the meeting of cultures in our
everyday lives through a video of 2 minutes at the most. The context has no stylistic
restriction and allows experimenting and releasing creativity and the imagination.
Jury made up of the Festival and Lenovo will select the three winners who will be awarded
euro 1,000 and a brand new Lenovo mobile workstation ThinkPad P40 Yoga and
participation in the Festival (410 April 2016) where they will have the opportunity to
appear before an international audience of film fans. In addition, thanks to the special
collaboration with the Civica Scuola di Cinema of Milan, one of the three winners will be
selected by a jury made up of two professionals on the sector and will have the chance to
take part free of charge in a course at the Summer School of the Civica Scuola di
Cinema.
Venues and dates of the event
The event will take place in Milan from 4 to 10 April 2016. Auditorium San Fedele, Spazio Oberdan, Cinema Palestrina, Institut Français – Milano, Teatro dell’Arte – Triennale, Festival Center, Casello Ovest di Porta Venezia Casa del pane
The Festival of African, Asian and Latin American Cinema is organized by the Centro
Orientamento Educativo Association – COE.
The Festival of African, Asian and Latin
American Cinema is a founding member of the Milano Film Network (MFN), the
network that brings together the experience and the resources of the seven
Milanese film festivals.
For all further information
COE – Centro Orientamento Educativo, tel. 02 6696258
www.festivalcinemaafricano.org; www.coeweb.org
email: festival@coeweb.org
Press Office
Studio Sottocorno Lorena Borghi
tel. 02 20402142 cell. 348 5834403
email: studio@sottocorno.it; lorenaborghi@gmail.com
