Article by Nicolò Pilon
Translated by Maria Bellantoni
The 22nd edition of the Glocal Film Festival, organised by the Associazione Piemonte Movie, will take place from the 10th to the 14th March 2023. The aim of this event is the promotion and diffusion of cinema made in Piedmont, but not only: the festival wants to promote local and global exchanges and contaminations, make room to Piedmontese artists with a global vision.
According to the director Marco Ponti, president of the documentary section jury, Glocal is the sum of the faults and merits of the places we come from, and it is the duty of artists not to abandon their roots. In his speech, he introduces the concept of ‘zero-kilometre narrative’, whereby a filmmaker would be obliged to know the stories of his or her own territory and take them outside its borders, pivoting on universal feelings and interests. Also, the jury will be made up by Eugenio Cesari, singer of the Turin-based music group Eugenio in Via di Gioia, who has been appointed ‘ambassadors of Turin in the world’, a role that is linked to the concept of glocal art.
During the meeting, the ‘documentary profession’ project was subsequently presented, a film analysis project conducted in Piedmont’s primary and secondary schools, which envisages the viewing and evaluation by students of three films with the awarding of a prize of the same name at the Glocal Film Festival. The aim is to bring students closer to the documentary film as a cultural, aesthetic and narrative product, and as a professional, productive and production opportunity, with particular attention to the aspects of enhancing and promoting the territory.
Following the presentation, the documentary Sic based on the life of Moto GP champion Marco Simoncelli, directed by the new artistic director of the Glocal Film Festival Alice Filippi, was screened. The documentary provides an opportunity to reflect on the concept of Glocal and how personal and ‘zero kilometre’ experiences allow one to project one’s own experience to the outside world. Alice Filippi has always been closely linked to the world of motors: one of her previous feature films is in fact ’78 – vai piano ma vinci’, the story of the director’s 23-year-old father, a rally champion and son of a Turin industrialist, who was kidnapped by the ‘ndrangheta during the 1970s in his hometown, Mondovì. The two films share a passion for engines and car manufacturers, competition, speed and the dangers of car and motorbike racing. The love for this world shines through in the subtlety with which the director decides to shed light on the narrative of champion Marco Simoncelli, showing the story of a boy who, despite a thousand adversities, managed to rise and conquer the most prestigious prize in moto GP.