Text and Images by Raffaella Fasano
The festival in Bari dedicated to cinema celebrates its
first 10 years.
Seventy-six thousand spectators, 8 days, 303 events and meetings with international directors and artists, 200 projections between world premieres and cinema lessonsone big success. These are the numbers of the 2019 edition of theInternational Film Festivalin a successful programme organised by the artistic director Felice Laudadio.
A triumph of Italian excellence in the world, for an event that this year blows out its first 10 candles, and that started with a bang, with the participation of the maestro Ennio Morriconeto whom the keys of the city were handed over, and whose notes soared through the centre of Puglia's capital, thrilling all those who experienced this event that has now become an eagerly awaited appointment of the year. The president by Apulia Film Commission Simonetta Dellomonaco stated at the press conference that he was happy that thanks to the investments in the film industry Apulia is becoming an increasingly European region.
The investment in culture is, in all likelihood, the best one can make, because art and cinema are not just moments of entertainment but opportunities for great reflection and cultural enrichment for everyone, especially the youngest. The Petruzzelli Theatre and the rediscovered Margherita Theatre were the locations where the most important appointments with the protagonists of the Bif&st, although in reality the whole city of Bari was, from 27 April to 4 May, enveloped in an atmosphere suspended between magic and dream. Waiting for this dream to be repeated next year.
