22/07/2016 - This year sees an important addition to the festival: the International #Open Frontiers# Competition, reserved for docufilms on integration. The Vento d’Europe Prize goes to Silvia Costa

On 25 July, the 22^nd edition of the Ventotene Film Festival kicks off in Ventotene, running until 31 July. The Festival was devised and is directed by Loredana Commonara, with Matteo Garrone as honorary president, and this year centres around the theme of a united Europe and the thirty-year anniversary of the death of Altiero Spinelli, who was one of the authors of the Ventotene Manifesto, a document that inspired the European Union.

And it is on the basis of these celebrations that the 2016 edition of the Festival brings us an important new addition: the International #Open Frontiers# Competition, which is reserved for docufilms associated with Europe, legality, active citizenship, democracy and racial integration, and will have a jury of students headed up by actor Giulio Scarpati.

The some 30 films submitted for the competition have been whittled down to four finalists that will compete for the Prize: Bitte Leben by Marco Candiago, Grozny Blues [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Nicola Bellucci, My name is Adil by Adil Azzab, Andrea Pellizzer, Magda Rezenee, and Non voltarti indietro by Francesco Del Grosso.

The Festival will also feature a programme of masterclasses, as it does every year: on 25 July there will one with Fabio Troiano, at the end of which, Freedom [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Davide Ferrario will be screened, whilst on 29 July there will be a masterclass with Vinicio Marchioni, who will present Un mondo nuovo by Alberto Negrin, which tells the story of Spinelli. On 30 July there will be a screening of Racing Extinction by Oscar-winning director Louie Psihoyos,a documentary exposé on endangered species.

The Festival will wrap up with the award of the Vento d’Europa Prize to honourable Silvia Costa. Over the years, the prize – which was created as a way of offering international recognition to an artist who represents Europe as a whole – has previously been awarded to the likes of directors Radu Mihaileanu, Matteo Garrone, Wim Wenders, Stefano Mordini, Louie Psihoyos, writers and screenwriters Giancarlo De Cataldo and Francesco Piccolo, and actors Fabrizio Bentivoglio and Vinicio Marchioni. 

(Translated from Italian)