“Popoli Reloaded”, documentaries from the Festival dei Popoli archive are back in the room

The Romanian director Radu Jude, winner this year of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, is the protagonist of Popoli Reloaded, the initiative organized by Festival dei Popoli, the international documentary film festival,to celebrate the reopening of the roomseenhance the historical archive of the festival, to be held from 15 al 18 June at Cinema The Company of Florence,with a selection of his films and an in-person masterclass (event organized in collaboration with the Romanian Academy in Rome).

Popoli Reloaded is organized as part of the cataloging project, digitization and enhancement of the archives of the Festival dei Popoli e Tuscany media library which see the Cinema Area of Sistema Toscana Foundation per Tuscany region e Archival Superintendence e Bibliography of Tuscany.

The review was born for the enhancement of the festival archive, assets at risk of perishable and deterioration,currently at the center of a digitization and promotion project, that sees involved Tuscany media library – the multimedia library specialized in cinema and the languages ​​of visual communication of Sistema Toscana Foundation – the Archival and Bibliographic Superintendency of Tuscany and the Tuscany Region. The film heritage collected by the Festival dei Popoli in over sixty years of activity is huge, today come to understand beyond 15.000 titles between documentaries and audiovisual works of various types and media.

Thanks to this project and the forthcoming application of advanced research computer programs, PHRemix, made in collaboration with the University of Pisa, the archive of Festival dei Popoli, within Mediateca Toscana, it is therefore once again available for consultation, available to scholars, experts, audiovisual professionals, schools, for study purposes, research and creative reworking of images.

Popoli Reloaded it connects to the project for reaching the public and disseminating the contents of the library archives presents a four days of cinema with a program of 18 divided documentaries by sections:Romania Facing the Past: Radu Jude's cinema(curated by Roberto Manassero); Diamonds are Forever, film from the archive (curated by Daniele Dottorini); Doc Explorer, the experimental section; The splendor of life: the cinema of Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel (curated by Daniela Persico in collaboration with the Austrian Forum)

Class 1977, adolescent at the time of the 1989 revolution, student and then filmmaker in the years of the Europeanization of Romania, Jude is now one of the most interesting voices in contemporary cinema.tribute to the director includes six of his films: Well done! (2015),black and white western set in the mid 19th century, raw and irreverent fresco of a country in transformation (15/06);The Exit of the Trains(2020), on the pogroms against the Jewish population during the Nazi invasion (16/05); the short The Marshall’s Two Executions (2018) on the shooting of General Ion Antonescu and The Dead Nation (2017) where the magnificent photographs of the portraitist Costică Acsinte run parallel to the doctor's texts, Jewish writer and poet Emil Dorian (16/06). And then the genius I Do Not Care IfWe Go Down in History As Barbarians (2018), black comedy about the collective repression of an entire nation(17/06) e Uppercase Print, alienating investigation into the secret police of the Ceausescu regime (18/06). Highlight of the tribute, the masterclass with Radu Jude on 17 Juneall 18the movies The Company. Ad anticipate the review, always as part of the tribute to Radu Jude, Sunday 13 June(ore 15 e 21) there will be a screening of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, winner of the Berlin Golden Bear(in reply the 20/06, ore 17).

Among the flagships ofPopoli Reloaded, selected from the festival archive,by title Diamonds are Forever. Scheduled Out of The Present by Andrei Ujică(1994)on the journey made in 1991 by two Russian astronauts on a space mission while on Earth events lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union; and then The Memory of a Future by Chris Marker and Yannick Bellon (France, 2001), a journey through time through the images of the extraordinary photographer Denise Bellon;finally,Ulysse by AgnèsVarda (France, 1982), between past and present starting from a photo taken some time ago by the director e The Mesmerist by Bill Morrison (USA, 2003), a psychedelic short that starts with a deteriorated nitrate copy of The Bells (1926) by James Youngs.

In the experimental section Doc Explorer, always from the festival archive, to report Judy Versus Capitalism by Mike Hoolbloom (Canada, 2019), a powerful experimental documentary portraying feminist Judy Rebick, A fervent supporter of freedom of abortion in Canada in the 1970s, based in part on his memoir "Heroes in My Head".

Friday 18 all 20:30 again at La Compagnia the Italian premiere of Notes From The Underworld (2020) of Tizza Covi Rainer Frimmel e, documentary that closes the show and retraces the fictional lives of Wienerlied folk singer Kurt Girk and his gangster friend Alois Schmutzer.