Magma illustrators on show
The festival week opens on Monday 13 November at 6.30 p.m. at Meraviglia Studio with a special event in collaboration with AIS Catania – Italian Sommelier Association, which offers a wine tasting.
For the occasion, an exhibition of illustrations created by Italian artists over the last ten years for Magma posters will be open to the public; the exhibition will remain open throughout the week from 5pm to 8pm.

Special Screening
After the Bridge, winner this year of the Best Film BPER Award and the Audience Award at the Biografilm Festival, opens the screenings of Magma 2023. Director Marzia Toscano will introduce the screening.
Following, director and actress Tiziana Giletto presents the medium-length film Io sono Catania made for the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired, Catania section.

After the Bridge
Davide Rizzo & Marzia Toscano
IT, 2023, 65′
Valeria Collina, an Italian woman converted to Islam, returns to live in Italy in the summer of 2015 after twenty years spent in Morocco. Two years later, her life is turned upside down by the death of her son Youssef, a member of a jihadist commando who caused eight deaths on London Bridge in 2017. After the confusion of those very first days, Valeria finds herself alone in the tranquillity of her home having to put her life in order.

Io sono Catania
Tiziana Giletto
IT, 2023, 30′
Concetto is a writer who returns to the city where he was born and raised: Catania, his muse, the most important of women. Walking through its streets he thinks back to what he has always, even without seeing, been able to perceive of this love. When he reaches the theatre, now empty, the mechanism of an old music box takes him back in time to when his text became a play about the city’s ‘geography of souls’. Memories, sounds and thoughts intersect; cinema and theatre mingle and the city becomes the protagonist through the daughters who have passed through it.

The festival’s international competition is preceded, as usual, by Insula – Impressions of Sicily, the section devoted to short films by Sicilian directors or set in Sicily: this year the date is Tuesday 14 November. The five short films in the programme will be presented by directors and technical cast members.

The selected films are:

Why are you here | Carla Costanza | France, 2023, 22′
A girl returns to Sicily, the land of her birth, to follow her partner during his street art project, filming his murals. Passing through these places together, the protagonist begins to remember the reasons that had driven her to leave: the lack of care for what we are, for what surrounds us, the lack of hope to build a richer and more satisfying future. Landscapes frozen in time, ancient memories of ghost towns. But above all, the last craftsmen encountered along the way.

Humus | Carla Dinolfo, Giulia Sinagra | Italy, 2023, 13′
An upper layer of soil and a key component in natural ecosystems, humus is also a stratification of stories, connections, intertwining, life and death.

Pina | Jérémy Depuydt & Giuseppe Accardo | Belgium/France, 2022, 23′
In a village in the Sicilian countryside, at the beginning of the 20th century, lives Pina, a young woman with the power to regenerate the earth. At every harvest, the village falls prey to shameless Mafia looting. Her encounter with the leader of the bandits plunges the village into starvation, endangering the fate of the entire island.

Hunger | Natalie Spencer | UK, 2023, 8′
Lady Aetna is bored and boredom can be a dangerous thing for those around you when you are a volcanic goddess. An elderly woman shares her life lessons as she reflects on the passage of time. It soon becomes clear, however, that things are not as they seem …

Why do you come here | Diego Pascal Panarello | Italy, 2023, 9′
In a suburban quagmire, against the backdrop of Augusta’s petrochemical chimneys, lives a group of pink flamingos. From this outpost over the city, the birds observe man grappling with his curious nefarious deeds. Every day, amid general indifference, the flamingos perform a surreal mise-en-scene that goes unnoticed. What are they trying to tell us?

In 2022, the collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts of Catania led to the birth of Eksperimenta, a section dedicated to video art and experimental cinema that aims to revive among the students of the Academy the function of audiovisual research and experimentation, but also to familiarise them with the creative, productive and distributive paths of the festival circuits.
The event, scheduled for Wednesday 15 November at the premises in via Franchetti 5, will see a selection of works realised by the students compared to that of international authors plus a focus on Uta Dag, stage name of Laura D’agate, visual artist, illustrator, graphic designer and video artist.

The films:
Il cranio e il corvo (The skull and the crow)
Alessia Bersola, Andrea Antoci, Camilla di Blasi, Chiara Monteleone, Christian Frittitta, Elena Romano, Luana Gorgone, Noemi Napoli, Regina Lauriola, Sabrina Magrì
IT, 2023, 10′
Short video re-enactments of Basil Dearden’s 1963 film of the same name by the students of the Video Art course.

L’isola (The Island)
Alberto Pitruzzello, Beatrice Manfré, Francesco F. Scuderi, Giovanni L. Trombetta, Giuseppe Barcellona, Jacopo Bianca, Marco M. Marino, Mario Cosentino, Samuele Nicolosi, Sara Passalacqua
IT, 2023, 10′
Short video re-edits of the 2006 film of the same name by Pavel Lungin by the students of the Videoart course.

Non credo (I don’t believe)
Alberto Vecchio, Dennis Grassia, Federica Costanzo, Felice F. Scuderi, Giovanni L. Trombetta, Leonardo Amore, Marco M. Marino, Sabrina Magrì, Samuele Nicolosi, Tancredi Messina
IT, 2023, 10′
10 experimental videos based on field interviews and linguistic contaminations.

Focus on Uta Dag

Imaginary bridge | IT, 2013, 33’’

LDV | IT, 2013, 34’’

Oh my God | IT, 2010, 17’’

Shopping bloom | IT, 2012, 10’’

Loveless | IT, 2013, 33’’ 

Looser peel | IT, 2013, 25’’

I lavori di Emme | IT, 2016, 35’’

Warning | IT, 2013, 14’’

The end (of romance) | IT, 2013, 41’’

International Competition – three-day programme

THURSDAY 16 NOVEMBER h 20.30 – Margherita Multisala, Acireale

Di ogni bene, Pablo Solari, Italy, 2023, 14’

La Perra, Carla Melo Gampert, France / Colombia, 2023, 14’

Mira niño, Sergio Avellaneda Belmonte, Spain, 2022, 13’

Just the two of us, Clara Lemaire Anspach, France, 2022, 19’

Stock, Alexei Dmitriev, Germany / Russia, 2022, 5’

Nothing holier than a Dolphin, Isabella Margara, Greece, 2022, 17’

Deadline, Idan Gilboa, Israel, 2023, 12’

Stains, Sofie Krogh Grud, Denmark, 2023, 19’

Desertion, Ajac Kalantar, Iran, 2023, 10’

FRIDAY 17 NOVEMBER h 20.30 – Margherita Multisala, Acireale

Anticlimax,  Nestor Lopez & Oscar Romero, Spain, 2023, 19’

Le Cri du Silence, Camille Anne, Julie Vandenbergue, Martin Laurent, Elisa Torris, Camille Leroy, Lucas Foutrier, France, 2022, 7’

Psychicken, Ata Mojabi, Iran/ Italy, 2023, 14’

Power Signal, Oscar Boyson, USA, 2022, 20’

Airborne, Andrzej Jobczyk, Poland, 2021, 8’

Riad, Yann Verburgh, France, 2022, 14’

Perder, Rubén Guindo Nova, Spain, 2023, 9’

Caro Mostro, Stefano P. Testa, Italy, 2023, 16’

Pisanka, Jorge Yúdice, Spain, 2022, 16’

SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBEr h 20.30 – Margherita Multisala, Acireale

68.415, Antonella Sabatino e Stefano Blasi, Italy, 2022, 20’

Empty Little People, Mikai Geronimo & Josh O’Caoimh, EIRE, 2021, 2’

Cul-de-sac, Francesco Gabriele, UK, 2023, 11’

Anhad, Niranjan raj Bhetwal, Nepal, 2022, 14’

Pig, Jörn Leeuwerink, Netherlands, 2022, 8’

Green Fit, Maxime Pistorio, Belgium / France, 2022, 18’

File, Sonia K. Hadad, Iran, 2022, 20’

Lights, Jitka Nemikinsová, Czech Republic, 2023, 9’

Carpenter, Xelîl Sehragerd, Iran / Kurdistan, 2023, 14’

Lorenzo Daniele – president of the Jury

He graduated from the University of Catania in Humanities (specialising in Archeology), while at the same time keeping alive his great passion for photography by producing photo reportages of travels in Central Europe, Cyprus, Libya, Croatia and Ireland. 

Between 2004 and 2006, he underwent internships at RAI and MEDIASET television productions, where he developed his expertise in the field of directing. Back in Sicily, he worked as a director and television author for the satellite channels Sicilia International and SET.

In 2008 he founded the photo and video production company “Fine Art Produzioni’, specialising in directing documentaries focused on archaeological and historical-artistic themes. His film works have participated in numerous international film festivals, winning important prizes and awards. Since 2011 he has been teaching courses and seminars on the communication of cultural heritage through the audiovisual medium and workshops on archaeological cinema for the School of Specialisation in Cultural Heritage and the Department of Humanities at the University of Catania. Since 2019 he has been a trainer within the National Film School Programme “Cinema e Immagini per la Scuola”. 

In collaboration with the archaeologist and screenwriter Alessandra Cilio, in 2011 he founded the Licodia Eubea Festival of Communication and Archaeological Cinema, an event for which he is artistic co-director. 

He is president of the Coordinating Committee of Film Festivals in Sicily (FCS) and publisher of web TVs, film productions and newspapers.

Marcella Silvestri

She began her career as a theatre actress in 1984 in various productions with Ugo Dighero, Carla Signoris, Maurizio Crozza and Giorgio Gallione. She studied acting, singing, dancing and dubbing, the latter of which would later become her main occupation in various dubbing studios in Milan. 

Her extremely versatile voice is particularly used in the dubbing of cartoons, manga and video games (she is Sabrina in E’ quasi magia Johnny, Harley Queen in the Batman animated series, Rossana in Rossana, Krillin in Dragon Ball, Doremì in Magica Doremì, Lady Nera in Sailor Moon and Lamù in the OAVs of the same name).

Since 2004, in pair with Marcella Cesena and later also with Simona Garbarino, she has performed numerous sketches in all the Gialappa’s Band programmes, including Sensualità a Corte where she plays Cassandra: they are currently on air on TV8 in the Gialappa’s Show. She is the official voice of the Mediaset channel ‘LA5’.

Giovanni Tomaselli

A director and videomaker, he graduated in Communication Sciences with a thesis titled “Cinema as a subversive art”. At la.mu.s.a. (the multimedia laboratory for audiovisual experimentation at DI.SU.M., University of Catania) he worked as a camera operator and video editor from 2006 to 2011.

He created and organised for eight years “alcinemamai”, a film retrospective at Teatro Coppola in Catania, aimed at reviving films that are invisible or not distributed in Italy and promoting works by local directors. 

One of the founders of the collective of video artists Cinepila, he collaborates permanently with the video artists’ collective Ground’s Oranges. He has written and directed music videos for Colapesce and Dimartino, Max Gazzè, Levante, Ermal Meta, Zen Circus, Cesare Basile, Cordio, Edy, Skom and more, winning awards at Pesaro, Sulmona, Cortinametraggio and Inventa un Film. He is the director of the sequence ‘Speedy Pizzo’ within the feature film ‘La Primavera della mia Vita’, directed by Zavvo Nicolosi.

LORENZO VECCHIO AWARD
The Lorenzo Vecchio Award is named after the creator of Magma, who passed at the young age of twenty-three, after directing the first three festival editions. The main festival award – which comes with a cash prize and an ornamental plate especially designed for Magma by Ceramiche De Simone.

AUDIENCE AWARD
The festival-goers will be able to rate each film through online voting forms made available at the start of each festival night to let them have a say in the choice of the international competition winner.

SPECIAL MENTIONS
The Magma Jury will also give some special mentions to those short films in competition standing out in artistic and technical qualities.

INSULA AWARD
Now in its fifth edition, the Insula Prize will be awarded to the best Sicilian short film chosen by the audience .

The enjoyment of cinema among young people constitutes a moment of fundamental importance for their cultural enrichment and personal growth: cinema stimulates the imagination and curiosity, and is an extraordinary form of communication through which to convey important values for the educational path of young students.

Magma Youth is the section of the festival dedicated to young audiences: on Friday 17 November at the Margherita Multisala in Acireale there will be a special screening of films specially selected for students, characterised by the presence in the auditorium of some of the directors, with whom brief debates will be held with simultaneous translation into Italian. Students attending the screenings will be asked to write a review of one of the short films seen during the morning; the best review will be awarded a special prize.