CINEMA IN INVISIBLE PLACES

h. 17.00 - Cineclub “L’Ultimo Spettacolo” - Corso Trinità 161 - Sassari
Masterclass: CINEMA IN INVISIBLE PLACES with Johanna Saarinen, Milja Mikkola, Ari Lehtola, Timo Malmi from Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä, and Sergio Scavio. Moderator: Carla Caprioli

This non-academic meeting is dedicated not only to film buffs and cultural operators, but to all those who have heard of the Midnight Sun Film Festival and want to know more about its story and the reasons for its success: 25,000 visitors during five summer days in Sodankylä (Lapland, Finland), a town of 8,000 inhabitants near the Arctic Circle, more than a thousand kilometers from Helsinki.

The meeting is hosted by the film club 'L'Ultimo Spettacolo' ('The Last Picture Show') in Sassari, which has been defined "a community of spaces that has a clear idea of the city", and we will have with us his founder, Sergio Scavio.

Of our Finnish guests, three (Ari, Executive Manager; Johanna, Production Manager; and Timo, film critic and current Artistic Director) already came to Asuni as guests in 2005, to the very first edition of our festival, at that time called "Asuni Film Festival". We will talk about the specifics of an event, the Midnight Sun Film Festival, born as a utopian bet in November 1985. This is how it is described by Peter von Bagh, its Artistic Director from 1986 to 2014:

"It was four in the morning. Impenetrable darkness loomed behind the window. Some alcohol had probably been consumed. "Why," he asked the municipality's Cultural Secretary, "don't we establish an international film festival here?" And why not, really. Anssi recounted his vision to the Kaurismaki brothers, with whom he was collaborating at the time: he also called me and asked me to be the festival director. I cannot claim to have understood the genius of his idea from the start and, the stupid man that I am, considered the notion of the filmmakers he wanted to invite for the first edition (John Huston and Akira Kurosawa) utopian. Fortunately I regained my senses sufficiently in a couple of months and decided to participate in the work to arrange the first festival. And so the first Midnight Sun Film Festival began on Friday, June 12, 1986.".

"A few key principles have always been followed in preparation for each year's festival: no bureaucracy and an unconditional 'no' to the atmosphere of pretence, manipulation and quasi-discussion that plagues thge majority of national so-called cultural events in Finland. Official bodies have always maintained a safe distance to the festival, and we have never been honoured by the top decision-makers of Finland's cultural administration. We consider this a desirable state of affairs. We would not have known how to entertain them in any case. We have, however, been helped by partners such as the Press Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose contribution has enabled us to invite the very best of international film critics to attend the festival (and we have always put them to work in tasks such as introducing some of the films in our programme..."

"Without [filmmakers] the world would be a much more miserable place - and so much more incomprehensible"
(from Peter von Bagh Sodankylä Forever - Masters of Cinema Under the Midnight Sun, Rosebud 2010, pages 11, 17 and 354)

At the end of the masterclass, projection:

19h00 - Cineclub “L’Ultimo Spettacolo” - Corso Trinità 161 - Sassari
KUUN METSÄN KAISA- KAISA'S ENCHANTED FOREST - LA FORESTA INCANTATA DI KAISA by Katja Gauriloff (Finland/2016/75’) - premiere in Italy
Meeting with our Finnish gueste

trailer

Credits of photo gallery: all the photos are reproduced courtesy of Midnight Sun Film Festival and taken from their web site, gallery MSFF year 2016. The authors are mentioned in the list below.

CINEMA IN INVISIBLE LANDS