Opening Ceremony

Video of the opening ceremony available on Youtube.

The opening ceremony was the opportunity to present the A-Place project to the Italian audience with the involvement of the coordinator Leandro Madrazo (School of Architecture La Salle, Barcelona), and to provide an overview of the main programme of the Festival, with the presentation of the four films out of competition related to A-Place competition on “Migrants, refugees and displaced communities”.

- “TORN – Strappati”, a documentary film produced by the UNHCR and directed by Alessandro Gassmann, a well-known Italian actor and director, goodwill ambassador at UNHCR. In the documentary, Gassmann talks to Syrian musicians, actors, directors, artists and poets about their lives in the aftermath of the civil war, while they are displaced in the Za’atari camp in Jordan and in Lebanon.

- “The Mediterranean: The Refugee Graveyard”, by Etienne Huver, Jean-Baptiste Renaud, narrating the activities of the Mediterranean emergency rescue ship ‘The Ocean Viking’ across the Mediterranean sea, and the condition of the detention centre in Zawiyah, Libya.

- “Iuventa”, by Michele Cinque, narrating the events of a crucial year in the life of a group of young Europeans, involved in the humanitarian project of the NGO Jugend Rettet: from the first voyage of the Iuventa ship in the Mediterranean to the heavy accusations that over a year later led to the preventive seizure of the ship as part of an investigation into illegal immigration.

- “Senegal/Sicily: Families in waiting”, by Alberto Amoretti and Giovanni Hänninen, narrating the story of Thiaroye-sur-mer, a fishing village in Senegal that has lost hundreds of men and boys over the past decade. Some mothers created an association to try to prevent clandestine migration and help women who remained alone. Some of these women still wait for a phone call even if they have had no news from their men for a long time.

Also, a film out of competition related to A-Place competition “A Confined Urban Vision” (2020) was presented:

- “Molecole”, by the well-known Italian director Andrea Segre, depicting the city of Venice during the lockdown, merging personal memories from his family and the irreal condition generated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Credits: the cover image is a still frame from PANORAMA by Gianluca Abbate (2014).