Within the planning economy of a one hour slot for the programme of this Festival dedicated both to students and to Venetian citizens, thoughts flew out in search of something universal that could touch everybody’s feelings.
Then something all-encompassing came up, something so universal that it is found in space, that it covers our planet, that it forms the greater part of our own selves: Water. Something we maybe take for granted, like our own selves. So useful every day, that only now it is getting scarce do we realise its worth. But beyond its usefulness, have we ever noticed its beauty? Its personality? Its vibrancy and power?
Venice is the water-city par excellence, the quintessential place for paying a tribute to water. In Venetian Sanskrit professor Franco Rendich’s brilliant interpretation, Venice means the place at the intersection of three waters in an ancient Indo-European language: think of the three rivers Brenta, Adige and Piave which flowed into the lagoon.
In Venice one cannot help noticing water, even reflected in the light beloved by so many painters, a lulling mother and wild stepmother.
In this year 2013, declared by the United Nations as International Year of Water Cooperation, and with World Water Day, celebrated every year, on 22 March, we should like to invite you to reflect on a more watchful use of water for down-to-earth uses, certainly, but also to do so out of respect and love for this substance that fills 70% of our selves, which perhaps we still know very little, which surrounds us with its splendour and its song, with poetry we should not forget.
The programme offers such themes through motion pictures propelled by humour, irony, scientific rigour and folk wisdom, from documentaries to animation to vintage silent cinema.
Laura Marcellino
