Yesterday, at the Santa Margherita Auditorium, the newly elected Ca’ Foscari’s rector Tiziana Lippiello launched the tenth edition of the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival. The event, one of the most importants host by the Venetian university, has a strong international footprint, guaranteed in these peculiar times by the double online and face-to-face mode and demonstrated by the enthusiastic participation of 248 Ca ‘Foscari students and other 50 students from all over the world. With the rector’s words: “Ca ‘Foscari and the city have a propensity towards the Silk Roads, Asia and the world, together with cultural institutions they continue to carry out and promote events of this magnitude.” The synergy between universities and institutions has made it possible to invite in Venice prestigious protagonists of the film scene from all over the world. Among these the rector will have the pleasure of conferring the Ca ‘Foscari Honorary Fellowship to one of the greatest masters of Italian and international cinema, Dario Argento, who will be present in video conference on Saturday 10 October.
Thanking the many cultural institutions involved in the realization of the festival, the rector has then invited on the stage Paola Mar, new councilor of the Municipality of Venice responsible of the relations with the university, a position created to promote the city in Italy and abroad: ” Venice has the need, the possibility and the strength to be a centre of attraction, economic development and knowledge ” she declared, underlining how the will and perseverance are indeed what leads and will lead to new possibilities. The realization of the Festival is therefore the testimony that, despite the adverse conditions of this period, the university community, citizens and institutions can look to the future with hope.
After a letter written by the President of the Veneto Region Luca Zaia bringing his greetings and best wishes to the festival was read, took the stage director of the Venice Foundation Giovanni Dell’Olivo; as a former Ca’ Foscari student, he celebrated the prestige achieved by the university and the festival as cultural institutions promoting social cohesion. The decision to ‘spread’ the event throughout the entire Venetian territory makes the festival properly metropolitan, extending also to the community the possibility of accessing knowledge and cinema news.
The inauguration of the Ca ‘Foscari Short Film Festival could only be closed by the artistic and organizational director Maria Roberta Novielli who thanked the many partners who supported the realization of this tenth edition, as well as the many guests who flew to Venice from all of Europe despite the difficulties, with a particular tribute reserved to the all-female jury composed of Sulafa Hijazi, Maria Mamona and Jun Ichikawa. A final thanks obviously went to all the volunteer students whom, with their energy and their positivity make this little venture possible day after day.
After the inauguration, the pilot episode of the last series of The Munchies was introduced on stage by Charlie Tango, co-creator together with his brother Miki, of the Italian television’s cult puppets, aired on Italia 1 and MTV between 2003 and 2010. Doppia Canna, the title of the episode, brings the audience back into the hilarious world of the Catozzo family, made up of Pasquale, the Neapolitan family man expatriated in Veneto, Miki, the son and fake student involved in shady trafficking, and by Nonna Yolanda, a sweet old Apulian woman often intent on rather unconventional actions. Many other characters revolve around them, celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Alfred Hitchcock appear in the form of puppets. For Charlie Tango: “Although it is a small local reality, we are proud of what we produce and are eager to experience.” Precisely these experimentations, have allowed the authors to master the technique and the creation of a unique product on the national territory such as the Munchies, which led them to develop an internal section of animated projects aimed at an audience of children and teenagers. The appointment with these irreverent puppets is therefore on the web and on dedicated social channels, where the other episodes of the new series will be distributed.
