24/11/2007

Davide Oberto, curator of the three Italian sections, reveals how to be one of the 11 docs (out of 300 received) or 24 shorts (out of 500) selected. No doubt for the documentaries:
“The movies we selected are above all cinematic, that’s why they deserve to be distributed in theatres. We prefer observational documentaries and those which are at the crossroads between fiction and doc, but we have also chosen more classical approaches, whose strengths are the topic and the ability of the director to inspire trust in his protagonists. Today it’s in documentaries that we see the best of Italian cinema.”

The panorama of Italiana.corti is more complicated to define: its more about gut feeling than set criteria.
“They must have a cinematographical dignity, but without being simply an exercise in style. They can’t be just a product of transitional stage towards the feature film: in a short movie you still have to feel the urgency, the passion.”

Regarding the Spazio Torino, this special section remains a part of the festival, which is bound to the city and its young directors:
“This year the selection has been made for the first time using the same criteria of the other sections instead of by a popular jury, and the results are great.”

One last thing to note - that is very important for a European magazine: for the first time ever these three sections will have English subtitles.