After Venice and Rome, Florence is also a city of cinema. A major festival is coming

Florence and Tuscany are increasingly the land of cinema. Thanks to the Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Florence, Fondazione Sistema Toscana (an in-house entity of the Region of Tuscany and the referent for the promotion of film and audiovisual culture), Fondazione CR Firenze and the Chamber of Commerce of Florence, the Triennale Cinema Project was born. Among the project’s first activities is the promotion of festivals with an international character, such as those that fall under the program of the 50 Days of Cinema in Florence, the set of festivals born in 2007 and returning in 2023 after a six-year hiatus. The new edition, in particular, will be held from October 5 to December 12 next year at La Compagnia cinema (which will be joined by other Florentine theaters). There will also be extraordinary resources, put in place by the City of Florence, with a three-year funding of 250 thousand euros, from the Ministry of Tourism, for the enhancement of “Great Italian Destinations for Sustainable Tourism.” A sum to which will be added a contribution of 50 thousand euros allocated by Fondazione CR Firenze. The extraordinary resources will allow the festival to have important guests in Florence, along with intense and wide-ranging communication campaigns aimed at engaging local audiences and reaching national and international audiences.

The 50 Days of Cinema in Florence achieved important numbers in 2022: 350 films were presented to the public (including 187 Italian, European or absolute premieres) that were seen by 31,929 spectators, in the presence of more than 250 guests from Italian and international cinema. Thanks to the new and strengthened support of the promoting institutions and bodies, Florentine festivals with an international vocation will be able this year to count on an increasingly large audience from outside the city, outside the region or from other countries, while at the same time increasing the cultural proposal aimed at citizens. Therefore, the 2023 edition of the “50 Days” promises to be even richer in terms of proposals and audience participation in the nine international festivals that make up its bill: Oct. 5 - 8 FánHuā Chinese Film Festival; Oct. 10 - 15 Middle East Now; Oct. 18 - 22 Florence Queer Festiva; Oct. 28 - Nov. 1 France Odeon; Nov. 4 - 12 Festival dei Popoli. International Documentary Film Festival; Nov. 15 - 19 Lo Schermo dell’arte Film Festival; Nov. 24 - 26 International Film and Women’s Festival; Dec. 1 NICE - New Italian Cinema Events; Dec. 7 - 12 River to River Florence Indian Film Festival.

At the end of the 50 Days, in December, a new initiative will also be held in Florence, desired and carried out in collaboration with theAccademia del Cinema Italiano Premi David di Donatello: the first edition of Italian Rising Stars, an award that the David Jury will assign to the movie stars of tomorrow. Starting with a selection work that will take place during 2023, new faces that can become ambassadors in the world of Italian cinema will be discovered.

Hosting the presentation of the new projects, will be the Salone di Donatello of the Bargello National Museum, where the bronze David, the masterpiece created by Donatello in the 1540s on commission by Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici, a sculpture that inspired the film award of the same name, established in Italy in the 1950s, is preserved. Donatello’s David was the object of admiration and interest from the time it was made, and over the centuries, while always remaining in the city of Florence, it frequently changed its home until it found its final location in 1865 in the Bargello National Museum, which was founded that very year to house the world’s most important collection of Renaissance statuary.

"When I think of the 50 Days, I cannot help but associate with it the word ’quality,’" said the president of the Region of Tuscany, Eugenio Giani, “this has always been the hallmark of the well-established international film festival, the result of fruitful teamwork, a festival that Tuscany prides itself on and that proudly carries the name of our region throughout the world. Quality, culture, openness, are inherent to Tuscany’s cinematic vocation and its long tradition that the Region supports and enhances with its cultural policies, aware that cinema is inevitably part of a broader process of which the promotion of the territory is part. Cinema and tourism are linked, a bond that finds its roots in human social and cultural history and creates new relationships and new forms of approach to our territories. This is a key that garners more and more attention and is increasingly powerful, which, in the age of audiovisuals, Tuscany gladly treasures and promotes with strong conviction.”

“Never before has the film sector needed support and revitalization as it does now, and we are ready to do our part,” stresses Florence Mayor Dario Nardella. “With this project we are going to support the sector more and more, initiating an even stronger synergy between institutions and putting in place a series of actions, starting with the re-launch of the 50 Days of International Cinema in Florence poster, which is going to be enriched with a valuable initiative such as the ’Italian rising stars’ award, intended to enhance young talents. The objective of this great work is, on the one hand, to enhance a cultural project that is now a reference point, which can thus make a further qualitative leap by arriving to intercept even new audiences, and on the other hand, to activate strategies to promote the city more and more as a set for film and audiovisual productions and make the most of the potential of this sector. All this also as leverage to attract different targets of visitors, with a view to developing an increasingly quality and sustainable tourist offer.”

“For the David di Donatello Awards it is an honor to be part of an initiative that includes such a significant number of important events,” said President and Artistic Director of the Italian Film Academy, Piera Detassis. “We will participate in the Tuscan cultural project with an innovative idea, which we have long hoped to implement, to highlight and enhance the revelation talents of our cinema.”

“The recognition of the excellent work that Fondazione Sistema Toscana does with its Cinema Area,” says the president, Iacopo Di Passio, "fills us with pride and is what helped lead to the signing of this important and innovative protocol. In fact, it is the first time that alongside the institutions and entities that support the culture of Cinema, entities such as the Chamber of Commerce and the tourism sectors of the Municipality and Region whose main objectives are economic development and promotion of the territory are lined up. Our Foundation, which has successfully combined cinema and tourism promotion in itself for many years, is naturally vocated to achieve this goal. Culture is a significant ally in this collaboration that focuses on the new launch of the 50 Days, a review that brings together the main Florentine festivals of international cinema, which, in the meantime, have found a home at La Compagnia. Added to this is the prestigious novelty of the collaboration with the Academy of Italian Cinema Premi David di Donatello for the national initiative Italian Rising Stars, thanks to which the new faces of Italian Cinema will be enhanced: therefore, there are all the prerequisites for success."

“The many films shot in Florence and Tuscany,” says CR Florence Foundation President Luigi Salvadori, "demonstrate the great appeal of our territory on the big screen as well. It is therefore appropriate to team up so that quality cinema becomes an additional attraction at the international level, and our participation in this task force shows that we believe in the project. We also feel that the birth of Italian Rising Stars is important because our Foundation is putting a lot of effort into the training of new generations and, above all, into new professions, and this artistic sector is generally stimulating in the search for new faces and new talents."

"The New 50 Days and the collaboration with the Academy of Italian Cinema Premi David di Donatello go in the direction that the Chamber of Commerce has always hoped for: that of making our territory always attractive and fostering collaboration between institutions. Culture is one of the most powerful engines of the Florentine economy, but it must be constantly updated and renewed, and synergy between different institutional entities is a guarantee of success," says Leonardo Bassilichi, president of the Florence Chamber of Commerce.

"I am delighted to host the presentation of the relaunch of the 50 Days of Cinema in Florence and the Italian Rising Stars award at the Bargello, in such an exceptional space as the Salone di Donatello, an emblematic place not only because it preserves the celebrated bronze David, among the greatest masterpieces of the artist who shaped the Renaissance," says Paola D’ Agostino, Director of the Bargello Museums, “but also because it is housed in the Hall formerly known as the Sala delle Udienze, a place that traces Italian excellence in the arts through the centuries, starting with Dante Alighieri who was condemned here to exile and then to the stake, and which undoubtedly represents, like the Renaissance, Italian identity in the world. Therefore, celebrating the art of film in this Salon is particularly pregnant with our past history and the new talents that will appear on the international scene.”

Image: the Donatello Salon of the Bargello Museum on the occasion of the exhibition Donatello. The Renaissance. Photo by Ela Bialkowska - OKNO Studio

After Venice and Rome, Florence is also a city of cinema. A major festival is coming

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