Discovering New Filmmakers from All Over the World
Friday, June 14, 2013 at 6:00PM A screening of the finalists of the Sixth Annual International Short Film Festival
Organized by the Meeting of Friendship among Peoples, in collaboration with the School of Visual Arts of New York, and Crossroads Cultural Center
With the participation of Giovanni MORRICONE, Filmmaker, and Salvatore PETROSINO, Director, Film, Video and Animation Department at the School of Visual Arts
A common misconception today is that art is primarily about creation. Thus, young people are often told that the mark of a great artist is the ability to come up with new ideas, to move in new directions and so on. The truth is, however, that making something that looks superficially "new" is not very hard, but is also not enough. All of us who love movies know that the true mark of a great film is that it makes us share in some meaningful human experience, in some sort of epiphany that reveals to us something that perhaps we knew but we forgot. It is a sort of peculiar Platonic anamnesis. In other words, great art, also in cinema, is primarily about discovery, and only secondarily about creation.A dear friend told me recently that when J.J. Abrams told his father that he wanted to become a director, his father's reply was, "I don't want you to be a filmmaker- that is easy- I want you to learn what to make a movie about." And that is precisely the question: what is worth making a movie about? Paradoxically, this question is more important that how to make the movie.
I was reading Roger Ebert's final review, on Terrence Malick's "To the wonder." I was surprised to hear him say in different words exactly the same idea. Ebert writes:
"A more conventional film would have assigned a plot to these characters and made their motivations more clear. Malick, who is surely one of the most romantic and spiritual of filmmakers, appears almost naked here before his audience, a man not able to conceal the depth of his vision. "Well," I asked myself, "why not?" Why must a film explain everything? Why must every motivation be spelled out? Aren't many films fundamentally the same film, with only the specifics changed? Aren't many of them telling the same story? Seeking perfection, we see what our dreams and hopes might look like. We realize they come as a gift through no power of our own, and if we lose them, isn't that almost worse than never having had them in the first place?"
In other words, Ebert says, the problem is not to come up with a new story, but to discover the true story, the truth of our story. True creativity always starts from the discovery that everything is a gift. This, it seems to me, applies very well to the finalists of our competition and to the way the jury has chosen the films that we will screen.
The short films will be preceded by the screening of MOMENTS, a film directed by Salvatore Petrosino. Followed by a Q& A with Salvatore Petrosino and Giovanni Morricone.
The evening will continue with light refreshments, followed by the screening of the finalists of the Meeting of Rimini Film Festival and a master class critique of the films on view.
The screening is free and open to the public.
For more information about the Rimini Meeting:
The Human Person: A State of Emergency
18 August 2013 - 24 August 2013
About this Event
Date: Friday, June, 14, 2013Time: 6pm
Location: School of Visual Arts
5 Floor - 502 Theater
209 East 23 Street, New York
click here for map
About the Speakers
Giovanni Morricone Filmmaker
Salvatore Petrosino Director, Film, Video and Animation Department at the School of Visual Arts
For more information about the Film Festival, contact:
Simonetta d'Italia WienerAmerican Representative
Meeting Rimini Film Festival
simonetta.ditalia@gmail.com
or visit www.meetingrimini.org/eng
Photos - click on image below
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