Sicilian festivals
In Palazzo Adriano
kicking off the fifth edition
of the Paradiso Film Fest
From Friday 2 to Sunday 4
reviewing more than 40 works
music, dance and master classes
With more than forty works in review and international guests also arriving from Lebanon, Japan and the United States, the Paradiso Film Fest, now in its fifth edition, returns to Palazzo Adriano from Aug. 2 to 4.
In the small community cinema in the town that served as the set for Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso” in ’88, short films, documentaries and animated films from around the world will be shown. Also on the program are concerts, dances, masterclasses, meetings with the public, exhibitions and game tours to discover Palazzo Adriano.
This year, the theme of the film festival created as an immersive and multisensory experience to be lived in the squares and streets of the Sicilian village is “Dreams and Madness.” The participating works were chosen through the call for short films and documentaries promoted on the FilmFreeway platform.
“The Paradiso Film Fest is not simply a film festival,” says the mayor of Palazzo Adriano, Nicolò Granà, who together with the Pro Loco is among the promoters of the event. “It is a project from the bottom up, promoting culture and the territory, but also an opportunity for inhabitants and visitors to come together as one community and to immerse themselves in a wide-ranging cultural experience and discovery of the beauty, history and hospitality of our charming village.
The fifth edition of the Festival is supported by the Sicilian Region, Department of Local Autonomies and Civil Service, and has received the patronage of Rai Sicilia. There are also many partners and local associations that support the project along with numerous promotional partners, small businesses in the Sicani area that believe in the generative power of culture.
Special guests at the event included Neapolitan actor Nicola Di Pinto, who was part of the cast of “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso,” and Polish actor Rafał Zaverukha, known among other things for playing the role of Roman Polanski in Quentin Tarantino’s film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
Prominent among the evening talks were directors Hiroki Hayashi, Matteo Gagliardi and Luciano Accomando, along with the stars of his latest film “Scianel,” Lollo Franco and Giulia Fragiglio, and location manager Cristian Peritore, busy in Palazzo Adriano on the set of Roberto Andò’s “The Dazzle.”
Celebrating the arbëreshe identity of Palazzo Adriano will be a meeting with two Albanian film festivals, the Tirana Young European Film Festival and the Tirana International Film Festival: for the occasion, artistic directors Jorgji Jonid, Gjipali Elkjana and Domi Agron are coming to Sicily .
The full festival program at www.paradisofilmfest.com
Text by Editors
