People and Religions – Terni Film Festival

The festival oversees screenings for inmates of the Terni prison and matinee performances for students of elementary schools, middle and high schools, as well as universities; national and international premiers, meetings with authors, concerts, theatre performances, exhibitions and an international competition for feature films, short films and documentaries.

Among the many personalities who attended the first twelve events are Enzo Enzo Decaro, Ellen Stewart, Enrico Brizzi, Vincenzo Cerami, Lina Wertmuller, Roberto Citran, Renzo Rossellini, Guido Chiesa, Liliana De Curtis, Emanuela Aureli, Silvano Agosti, Arnaldo Colasanti, Angelo Longoni, Adelmo Togliani, the sand artist Gabriella Compagnone, Luis Bacalov, Philomena Lee (character of the film Philomena by Stephen Frears which is played by Judi Dench) as well as Dario Edoardo Viganò, prefect for the Vatican's Communications, who was president of the jury in 2008 and in 2011 and one of the authors of the book Tra cielo e terra [Between Heaven and Earth] and who received the career award in 2014.

Every year one evening of the festival is dedicated to St Francis of Assisi, the first Christian to peacefully convey a dialogue with another religion.

Among the award-winning artists there are Alessandro D’Alatri, Krzysztof Zanussi, Paolo Consorti, Franco Battiato, Giuliano Montaldo, Lech Majewski, Jerzy Stuhr, Eugenio Barba, Amos Gitai, Ascanio Celestini, David Rondino, Nino Frassica, Elio Germano and the PFM Band.

There is also another book related to the festival: Cinema, artisti e religione [Cinema, artists and religion] by Arnaldo Casali that constitutes a collection of interviews and opinions of, among others, Angelo Branduardi, Giobbe Covatta, Corrado Guzzanti, Sabrina Impacciatore, Neri Marcorè, Davide Rondoni, Carlo Verdone, Nanni Moretti and Alice Rohrwacher (Pendragon, 2011h).

The festival was conceived in 2005 by the then Bishop of Terni Vincenzo Paglia (spiritual counsellor of the community of Sant'Egidio, currently the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life) with the aim of creating a personal and religions dialogue through cinematographic art: a "meeting of civilizations" in response to the "clash of civilizations" raised after 11 September.

The Godfather of the Festival was Carlo Fuscagni, founder of the Umbria Film Commission and then president of Cinecittà Holding.

During the festival he met on stage Riccardo Leonelli, an actor who was later starring in his films: Interior Voices (2009) and Foreign Body (2015).

In 2009, in the context of the Focus on Africa, the project of the director Paolo Bianchini Il sole dentro [The Sun inside] was presented to the public for the first time.

This film focused on the story of Yaguine and Fodè: two children from Guinea who died in 1999, hidden in the cargo compartment of an airplane heading to Brussels, where they wanted to deliver a letter "to the Rulers of Europe."

This project was then still only in the stage of screenplay preparation: a scene was played live by Francesco Salvi (Italian actor) and two children from the Terni African community.

On this special occasion, Fabio Bussotti played the role of Friar Leone (at the age of 21), just upon his return from winning the Silver Ribbon Award for Liliana Cavani's Film.

In 2011, Liliana Cavani, receiving the Angelo alla Carriera Award, announced her intention to shoot a third film on St Francis of Assisi, which was then released in 2014.

The focus of that year's Festival was on Morocco and Islam, in response to the wave of racial hatred and Islamophobia following the attack on the "Charlie Hebdo" magazine and the murder of a Terni boy by a Moroccan drug dealer in the square right in front of the ISTESS centre.

This climate of tension led to special safety measures during the festival (in particular the inauguration day attended by the President of the Region, Catiuscia Marini, and the Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti) and the controversy raised by the Italian newspaper "Libero" for the involvement of the Young Muslims of Italy Association.

Also in 2016, the festival was preceded by a special event at the Lyrick Theatre in Assisi, where the French film L’ami [The Dream of Francis] was given its world premiere.

Best Film 2007 7km da Gerusalemme by Claudio Malaponti (Italy) 2008 Corazones de mujer by Davide Sordella & Paolo Benedetti (Italy-Marocco) 2009 Silent Wedding by Horatiu Malaele (Romania) 2010 Velma by Piero Tomaselli (Italy) 2011 The mill and the cross by Lech Majewski (Poland) 2012 When day breaks by Goran Paskaljevic (Serbia) 2013 The priest’s children by Vinko Bresan (Croatia) 2014 Il sole dei cattivi by Paolo Consorti (Italy) 2015 Histoire de Judas by Rabah Ameur Zamesche (France), Biagio by Pasquale Scimeca (Italy) 2016 Dough by John Goldschmidt (Great Britain – Hungary) 2017 La metamorfosi (England) 2018 Une saison en France by Mahamat Saleh Haorun (France)

Career Award 2006 Krzysztof Zanussi 2007 Franco Battiato 2008 Alessandro D’Alatri 2009 Giuliano Montaldo 2010 awarded but not delivered to Luigi Magni 2011 Liliana Cavani and Pupi Avati 2012 Jerzy Stuhr 2013 Eugenio Barba, Ryszard Bugajski and Renato Scarpa 2014 Dario Edoardo Viganò and Amos Gitai 2015 Ascanio Celestini 2016 Elio Germano 2017 Franco Cardini and Religion Today 2018 Terence Hill 2019 Alice Rohrwacher 2020 SacroFilm Festival 2021 Giobbe Covatta 2022 Ninni Bruschetta 2023 Matteo Garrone and Abel Ferrara

Moschin/Ubaldi Award - Best Cinema in Umbria 2016 My awesome sonorous life by Giordano Torreggiani 2017 In Arte Nino by Luca Manfredi 2018 Marialuna Cipolla 2019 Pietro Pulcini 2020 Gigi Proietti 2021 Marzia Ubaldi 2022 Emanuele Stracchi 2023 Barbara Petronio

Best Short Film 2012 Babylon Fast Food by Alessandro Valori (Italy) 2013 Giù e su by Corina Zund (Switzerland) 2014 Acabo de tener un sueno by Javier Navarro (Spain) 2015 Nell’ora che non immaginate by David Gallarello (Italy) 2016 Adam & Eve by Bianca & Davey Morrison (USA) and Holy City by Imbal Bentzur and Mor Galperin (Israel) 2017 Siamo la fine del mondo by Guglielmo Poggi (Italy) 2018 Are you volleyball?

Artistic directors Carlo Chatrian (2005) Arnaldo Casali, Monica Ceccarelli, Alessandro Minestrini & Matteo Ceccarelli (2006) Alessandro Minestrini & Matteo Ceccarelli (2007–2010) Pierluigi Frassineti (2011) Arnaldo Casali (2012) Oreste Crisostomi (2013) Arnaldo Casali (2014–2020) Riccardo Leonelli (2021) Moni Ovadia (2022-2023) 2006 – Screening of Francesco by Liliana Cavani (1989); Meeting with Liliana Cavani, Fabio Bussotti, Krzysztof Zanussi, Lilia Sebastiani (theologist).

Terni – Screening of Il sogno di Francesco, meeting with Chiara Frugoni and musical performance of the original version of the Cantico delle creature by Friar Alessandro Brustenghi.

The first two festivals were held at the film studios of Papigno, in the auditoriumO of Palazzo Primavera and in the cinema Fiamma, which closed in 2007.

On the occasion of celebration of Saint Valentine's Day, patron of Terni and lovers, special events are organized periodically: in 2008 - the premiere of the film Lezioni di cioccolato by Claudio Cupellin; in 2009 – a meeting with Alessandro D’Alatri and screening of Casomai; in 2011 – the theatrical performance Scene da un matrimonio by Ingmar Bergman starring Daniele Pecci and Federica Di Martino and directed by D’Alatri; also in 2016 – screening of Figli di Maam by Paolo Consorti and of the documentary San Valentino a Bussolengo produced by Istess, along with the showing of the short film Valentino con ghiaccio by Paolo Consorti in 2017.