by Benedetta Cucci
Bologna I Love You by Andrea Mingardi will close this evening the 55-night program of the event Sotto le stelle del cinema, which brought 210,000 spectators to Piazza Maggiore. The great calendar produced by the Cineteca and appreciated by the Italian and international public “who see in the initiative an identifying trait of the city itself”, had started last June 17 with the evening in homage to Francesco Guccini, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his legendary concert in 1984 Fra la via Emilia e il West, and in this conclusion with Mingardi sees yet another sentimental tribute to the city of the Two Towers.
This year too, Sotto le stelle del cinema has intertwined its path with that of the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival: the evenings from June 17 to July 7 took place under the aegis of the 38th edition of a festival that once again saw professionals, scholars, cinephiles and enthusiasts flock to the city from over 70 countries around the world.
But, explains the institution directed by Gian Luca Farinelli, “it was also the year in which Sotto le stelle del cinema found its mirror for the first time in the Cinema Modernissimo, with the new entrance inaugurated precisely on the occasion of the screenings in Piazza Maggiore, for a dialogue between screenings in the square and screenings in the theater, which goes beyond the invaluable refuge that the Modernissimo offers on bad weather evenings, and which makes the heart of Bologna a heart that beats for cinema, above and below the surface, where spectators meet, unite to celebrate a ritual and affirm the cultural strength of a city that makes an event of such quality and success possible”.
Like every year, the film festival is a rediscovery of titles that make us love the history of cinema even more. Thanks to masterpieces from the silent era such as The Wind by Victor Sjöström to those of more recent years such as Tarantino’s latest Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, experimenting with new formulas such as the live performance of the music of a sound film, as happened on the evening when the Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna played the unforgettable music by Nino Rota on the images of Amarcord, one of the most attended evenings, together with those of Paris, Texas (previewed in Piazza Maggiore and distributed throughout Italy in the fall), Babylon, Il Postino, a tribute to Massimo Troisi and an image of Sotto le stelle del cinema 2024, 8½ and La dolce vita, a film that symbolizes the partnership between Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni, an icon of Italian cinema that the Cineteca celebrated on the centenary of his birth.
And, speaking of the cycle dedicated to Mastroianni, “we must also pay homage to the many daredevils who braved the storm of August 7 to see him in Pietro Germi’s Divorce Italian Style”, they recall from the Cineteca, which also thanks the many guests who stepped onto the big stage, from Darren Aronofsky, to present Miloš Forman’s Amadeus to Wim Wenders for John Ford’s classic The Searchers (along with Alexander Payne) and his Paris, Texas, Damien Chazelle (for two nights) who presented Jacques Demy’s musical Les Parapluies de Chebourg (which inspired La La Land) and his more recent Babylon. Pupi and Antonio Avati and Italo Cucci with their Ultimo minuto, Daniele Gaglianone and Valerio Mastandrea with La mia classe for the new citizenship celebrations, Matteo Garrone with the extended version of Dogman.
The Cineteca will meet the public on Wednesday 21 August, when the Cinema Lumière will reopen with the first screening, in the original version, of MaXXXine, the third and final chapter of the X trilogy directed by director Ti West and starring actress Mia Goth.