Bif&st 2019 – 4 Oscar winners in Teatro Petruzzelli: Nicola Piovani, Ennio Morricone, Giuseppe Tornatore, Gianni Quaranta
Teatro Niccolò Piccinni in Bari, newly restored, from 2020 will be a screening venue, in addition to Teatro Petruzzelli
Bif&st-Bari International Film Festival reaches every year 75.000 spectators, and in just ten editions, with its broad offer of the highest cultural level (the 2019 program, April 27 to May 4, presented 303 events over 8 days), it has become one of the leading cinematic events in Italy. The main venue of Bif&st is the most beautiful theatres in the world, the Teatro Petruzzelli. In 2019 Bif&st took place also in the great and freshly restored Teatro Margherita and in the 7 theatres of Multicinema Galleria. In the next edition (March 21-28, 2020) also the restored Teatro Niccolò Piccinni in Bari will be included, and in the future the Teatro Kursaal will be added.
Bif&st, which is under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic, is promoted by Apulia Region in collaboration with the City of Bari and with the Cinema Directorate of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities. The festival is produced by Apulia Film Commission Foundation.
Festival president is Margarethe von Trotta. The late film director Ettore Scola, president for many years, is now honorary president. The founder and director is Felice Laudadio, current president of Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, past director of the Venice Film Festival and of the Casa del Cinema in Rome, and also past CEO of Istituto Luce and chairman of Cinecittà Holding.
Among the guests awarded with the Federico Fellini Platinum Award for Cinematic Excellence were: Jean-Jacques Annaud, Fanny Ardant, Luis Bacalov, Costa-Gavras, Stephen Frears, Abbas Kiarostami, Andrej Končalovskij, John Madden, Alan Parker, Jacques Perrin, Michael Radford, Edgar Reitz, Volker Schlöndorff, Barbara Sukowa, Bertrand Tavernier, Max von Sydow, Margarethe von Trotta, Andrzej Wajda; among Italians guests: Antonio Albanese, Gianni Amelio, Roberto Andò, Dario Argento, Pupi Avati, Marco Bellocchio, Bernardo Bertolucci, Richard Borg, Andrea Camilleri, Claudia Cardinale, Sergio Castellitto, Liliana Cavani, Paola Cortellesi, Cristina Comencini, Valerio De Paolis, Pierfrancesco Favino, Sabrina Ferilli, Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo, Giancarlo Giannini, Fabrizio Gifuni, Valeria Golino, Ugo Gregoretti, Tonino Guerra, Roberto Herlitzka, Virna Lisi, Mario Martone, Valerio Mastandrea, Giuliano Montaldo, Laura Morante, Nanni Moretti, Ennio Morricone, Ornella Muti, Nicola Piovani, Michele Placido, Francesco Rosi, Sergio Rubini, Ettore Scola, Toni Servillo, Paolo Sorrentino, Vittorio Storaro, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Giuseppe Tornatore, Armando Trovajoli, Carlo and Enrico Vanzina, Carlo Verdone, Paolo Virzì and Paolo Del Brocco. All of these great professionals held a Master Class for the very large audience of the Teatro Petruzzelli (about 1.400 people each time).
The gala evenings, in the historical Teatro Petruzzelli, present films out of competition from all over the world, in the section International Premieres. 12 other films – Italian premieres – are selected each year for the International Panorama competition, also in the Teatro Petruzzelli, with an international jury awarding the best director, best actor and best actress.
Starting from 2020 Teatro Piccinni will host the ItaliaFilmFest section, presenting the best Italian films of the past year, awarded by a renowned jury of film critics. In the same theatre there will also be a program of eight recent films, each year from a specific country, introduced by their film directors and cast.
Bif&st also organizes special events, professional film workshops, and meetings with authors. Moreover, it hosts collateral sections dedicated to “Cinema and Science”, “Cinema and Law”, “Cinema and Medicine”, “Cinema and Environment”.
Bif&st also organizes each year important Retrospectives, among the most extended ever tributed to these masters and great cinema personalities: Carmelo Bene, Franco Cristaldi, Vittorio Gassman, Federico Fellini, Marco Ferreri, Fritz Lang, Marcello Mastroianni, Ennio Morricone, Dino Risi, Francesco Rosi, Ettore Scola, Alberto Sordi, Giuseppe Tornatore, Gian Maria Volonté. The retrospective of Bif&st 2020 will be dedicated to Mario Monicelli, who passed away 10 years ago.