BIF&ST – Bari International Film Festival reaches every year 75.000 spectators, and in just six editions, with its broad offer of the highest cultural level (our 2015 program presented 350 events over 8 days), it has grown to become one of the leading cinematic events in Italy.
Film director Ettore Scola was president of Bif&st before his death, in the past days. The director is Felice Laudadio, former director of the Venice Film Festival and president of Cinecittà Holding. The main venue is the prestigious Teatro Petruzzelli, included among the most beautiful theatres in the world, and 12 other city theatres are reserved to the festival.
The gala evenings of the festival in the historical Teatro Petruzzelli present International Premieres (or, in any case, absolute premieres for the Italian market) of highly spectacular movies, among which, in 2010: Nine by Rob Marshall, The Lovely Bones by Peter Jackson, An Education by Lone Scherfig, Away We Go by Sam Mendes; Bright Star by Jane Campion. In 2011: The King’s Speech by Tom Hooper, Morning Glory by Roger Michell, London Boulevard by William Monahan. In 2012: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Stephen Daldry, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by John Madden, Titanic 3D by James Cameron. In 2013: The Place Beyond the Pines by Derek Cianfrance, A Late Quartet by Yaron Zilberman, Stand Up Guys by Fisher Stevens, Mama by Andrés Muschietti, Stoker by Chan-wook Park. In 2014: Noah by Darren Aronofsky, The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson, The Invisible Woman by Ralph Fiennes, Fading Gigolo by John Turturro. In 2015: Le dernier loup by Jean-Jacques Annaud, Ex Machina by Alex Garland, The Misplaced World by Margarethe von Trotta, The Second Best Marigold Hotel by John Madden, Miss Julie by Liv Ullman, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck by Brett Morgen, Chappie by Neill Blomkamp.
During the past 6 years some of the guests awarded with the “Federico Fellini Platinum Award for Cinematic Excellence”, for having illuminated the cinema world with their artistic work, were: Marco Bellocchio, Claudia Cardinale, Dante Ferretti, Stephen Frears, Abbas Kiarostami, Nicola Piovani, Francesco Rosi, Barbara Sukowa, Bertrand Tavernier, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Giuseppe Tornatore, Margarethe von Trotta, Max von Sydow, Paolo Sorrentino, Luis Bacalov, Michael Radford, Sir Alan Parker, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Costa-Gavras, Edgar Reitz, Andrzej Wajda, Nanni Moretti amongst the others. Every one of these great professionals held a Master Class for a passionate audience of about 1.200 people each time gathered in the Teatro Petruzzelli.
Not only is the festival enthusiastically welcomed by local audiences, but also by the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI), which holds its yearly General Assembly in Bari during Bif&st dates. In fact, media coverage of the festival features both national and international journalists: 150 professionals coming from Italy and 50 from the whole world.
Bif&st also searches cinema and television archives for unreleased and precious documents on great personalities who were ambassadors of Italian cinema to the world: the Retrospectives dedicated to Federico Fellini, Alberto Sordi, Carmelo Bene, Gian Maria Volonté, Francesco Rosi are among the most extended ever tributed to these masters.
In addition to non-competitive screenings, special events, workshops and meetings with the authors, Bif&st features 3 Italian competitions: one dedicated to the best films released over the last year; one dedicated to best Debut or Second Film Directors; and from 2016 a brand new competition reserved to new films, absolute Italian premieres.
