18/06/2013 - The director of the Biografilm Bologna Festival talks about the ninth edition’s newest developments, with a look to 2014, when the festival will turn ten

"Look Forward - Guarda avanti". For the director of the Biografilm Festival, Andrea Romeo, this is not just a useful slogan to put on programmes and event descriptions, but rather a philosophy to implement. As such, for the ninth edition of this festival, unique in its genre, focused on biographies and life stories (Bologna, 7-17 June), the 39-year-old cinema critic, who conceived and directed the Future Film Festival between 1998 and 2002, started from scratch.

Cineuropa: In what ways is the Biografilm festival forward looking?
Andrea Romeo: Things change quickly. Last year, some of the films were still celluloid movies, and now they are all digital. Last year, we still thought that print was the most important form of media, and now movie theatres fill up thanks to social networks. The worst thing to do is to look back at the past and try to change it. Instead, we need to rethink things in a world which has completely changed, from locations to balancing programming, from the organisation of offices to who does what. 

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One of this year’s novelties is the Follower card. What does it consist of?
It is more than a membership. It is made for those who, beyond watching films, want to get to know, participate in and support the festival. Having it means having access to a closed group on Facebook. Followers can ask each other questions and receive exclusive information. If a director accepts to meet a Follower, even at the last moment, I will pick up the phone and send a message to the rest of the community. The card is valid year round, even for other Biografilm initiatives happening around Italy. It gives access to services like exclusive screenings and 50% off tickets.

Biografilm mainly selects documentaries. How are documentaries faring in Italy?
The public is hungry for new, quality content and wants to be surprised. There is a documentary audience, and it is growing. On a global level, a clear space has been created, a great field in which documentaries can happily gallop around. In Italy, more money is needed but the filmmakers, stories and expertise are all there.

Biografilm Collection was created specifically for these documentary hungry audiences. What is it?
It is a distribution and support project for the festival’s films. Every year, we select films among 450 proposed, we give them subtitles, a press launch, a graphic toolkit and we host the director. It would be absurd not to invest something more to give these films a public beyond the eleven days of the festival. For this, we found an attentive and visionary partner in Unipol. At the moment, the first one is Searching for Sugar Man [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which has just hit cinemas at the same time as it has iTunes. It will then be distributed on Sky Arte and in DVD. Upcoming films include The Man Behind the Throne (read the review) and last year’s winner, Jason Baker: Not Dead Yet.

What kind of budget does such a festival have?
Little more than half a million euros. But if you include the work, means and intelligence put to task, it is worth at least double. We are adapting to this moment of crisis, but for the future – next year we will turn ten – we are aiming to get national and European financing (editor’s note: Biografilm is mainly supported by the Emilia-Romagna region and by private sponsors). The ministry needs to realise that among all the cuts, there are events that should be developed which moments have come. As for Europe, we will try and re-enter into the parameters without changing the nature of our project. There is a quota of European films that needs to be respected in order to have access to funding. That is a bit difficult for this festival, because the best of documentary filmmaking is not always in Europe. In my opinion, we need to defend European festivals across the world, as European cultural products, before defending the films they are presenting. To finance the Paris Sundance and not this is contradictory. But the MEDIA programme is changing, we will see how.