The 26th Aquileia Film Festival kicks off on Tuesday 2022 July 13, the film, art and archaeology festival that will enliven Aquileia with films, conversations and books until 2 August, on the natural stage of Piazza Capitolo.

Seven evenings of cinema, archaeology, art and great science communicators: 3 evenings dedicated to the competition, to which are added another 4 evenings-events.

Cinema, archaeology, experts will alternate on stage for six evenings in a program full of events.

The formula is now well-tested: cinema, archaeology and great science communicators will alternate on stage.

The festival will have a prologue with a special evening dedicated to Pasolini and Medea on Tuesday 26 July, followed by three festival evenings (with the films in competition) from Wednesday 27 to Friday 29 July, and three other event evenings dedicated to the screening of as many films out of competition from Saturday 31 July to Tuesday 2 August 2022.

As per tradition, the evenings begin at 9:00 PM. Admission is free. Online reservations are required on the Eventbrite platform at https://www.eventbrite.it/o/fondazione-aquileia-46011520753.

The full program can be downloaded here.

The Festival will open on Tuesday 26 July with an evening event dedicated to the centenary of the birth of Pier Paolo Pasolini in collaboration with La Cineteca Del Friuli. The appointment is scheduled for 21.00:1969 pm in Piazza Capitolo for the viewing of “Medea”, a milestone in the history of Italian cinema, made in XNUMX and directed by Pasolini who reinterprets the myth and entrusts the part of the protagonist to the “divine” Maria Callas. His intent is to reflect on the encounter-clash between different cultures represented by Medea and Jason. The external shots were also filmed in the Grado lagoon, a place discovered thanks to the friendship with the Friulian painter Giuseppe Zigaina, who also took him to visit the excavations and the basilica of Aquileia. We will talk about it with his daughter Alessandra Zigaina, a journalist, and with Professor Francesca Agostinelli, curator of the exhibition currently underway in Grado dedicated to Pasolini's unpublished drawings.
The meeting is led by Elena Commessatti, journalist and writer, who will lead us to discover an intimate and unpublished Pasolini.

In collaboration with La Cineteca Del Friuli.

Subsequently, films and conversations under the stars will alternate on the stage in front of the Basilica dei Patriarchi for an edition that will get into the heart of the evenings of archaeology on July 27 and will propose five films in competition, among which the spectators will choose the winner of the Aquileia Prize, a mosaic by the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli.

On Wednesday 27 July the public will be able to be captivated by the fascinating adventure of underwater archaeology in the Mediterranean told in the film Thalassa, the story and discover the threat of an eruption in the Campi Flegrei that would endanger the millions of residents of the city of Naples thanks to the research of the scientists featured in the documentary The Next Pompeii.

Guests on the Festival stage on Wednesday 27 July Paolo Giulierini, director of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and Fabio Pagano, director of the Campi Flegrei archaeological park.

On Thursday 28 July we will travel to the ancient ports of the Roman Empire, from Narbo Martius, an important colony in the south of France described in Narbonne, the second Rome, to Portus (ancient Ostia), the protagonist of the short film Ecco che cominciamo a dipinger con la pietra.

Water, a crucial element and precious resource that allowed the development of cities and strategic areas of the Roman Empire, including Aquileia, will be the common thread of the two evenings and the element around which the dialogues led by Piero Pruneti, director of Archeologia Viva, will develop.

The protagonists of the conversations will be Marta Novello, director of the National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia together with Edino Valcovich and Chiara Mistelli, referents of the MuCa – Museum of Shipbuilding of Monfalcone.

Friday 29 July the Festival enters into the current affairs and through the film “The Oath of Cyriacus” by Olivier Bourgeois, filmed entirely inside the Archaeological Museum of Aleppo during the civil war in Syria in 2011, wants to relaunch a message of hope because culture understood as knowledge of the other can and must be an alternative to the conflicts that involve humanity.
The film shows the public for the first time the race against time of archaeologists, workers and custodians who ten years ago rescued 24.000 artifacts from the Aleppo Museum under bombing, securing an archaeological heritage fundamental to the history of the Near East.
With Suad Amiry, Palestinian writer and architect, founder of the Riwaq Centre for the protection of Palestinian architectural and cultural heritage in Ramallah, we will talk about cultural heritage at risk during wars. The writer, born in Damascus, has lived between Amman, Damascus, Beirut and Cairo. Winner of the Nonino Risit d'Aur Prize in 2014, she has always fought for peace in the Middle East.

On Sunday, July 31st at 21 pm , following its huge television success, La scelta di Maria (Maria's Choice) will be screened in Aquileia square . This documentary film, shot in Aquileia and produced by Anele, retraces the historical, political, and social story of the Unknown Soldier, through performances by Sonia Bergamasco as the Mother of Italy, Maria Bergamas , Cesare Bocci as the Minister of War , Luigi Gasparotto , and Alessio Vassallo as Lieutenant Augusto Tognasso . The film combines fictional narration with precious period footage, original animations, and a series of "reconstructed interviews" with the protagonists.

Followed by the Zoom conversation with Cesare Bocci , hosted by Elena Commessatti.

On Monday, August 1st, the big screen will feature The Postumia Way . The Via Postumia—one of the most important and strategic consular roads of the Roman Empire, crucial for east-west connections within the Italian peninsula—connected Genoa with Aquileia, creating a bridge between the regions of Gaul and modern-day Spain with the eastern empire and the eastern trade routes. Paolo Rumiz walks along it from Cremona to Aquileia and describes it in this film.

The conversation will follow with Paolo Rumiz , journalist, writer, traveler conducted by Cristiano Tiussi, archaeologist and director of the Aquileia Foundation

The Festival is closing Tuesday August 2 with the screening of the award-winning documentary “Langobards – Alboin and Romans“. A documentary film dedicated to the Lombard world that, through a balance between cinema and historical and archaeological dissemination, tells the story of King Alboin, the arrival of the Lombard people on the Italian peninsula, and the birth of the village of Romans, an important military garrison in Friuli that has given us one of the largest Lombard necropolises in Italy.
Elena Commessatti moderates the conversation with Matteo Grudina, president of the Invicti Lupi association.

Source: Giro. Events & Tourism in Friuli Venezia Giulia