The courage shown by film directors in expressing diversity through film is the theme of the 15th Medfilm Festival sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). The event will run from 7 to 15 November in Rome, with 132 works that include full-length features, shorts and documentaries from 36 Mediterranean countries.
The huge range of films on offer at Medfilm restores to the big screen the Mediterranean’s rich multi-cultural reality. Unknown voices and stories testify to the enormous value of expressing and sharing diversity. In presenting the event, the Festival’s director, Ginella Vocca, described how a film can help the general public understand another country “far better than by attending a conference or reading a book”.
“Film has no need to reiterate its indisputable status as a valid aesthetic medium”, underscored Antonio Morabito, Communications Coordinator at the Directorate General for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation at the MFA. “Cultural Diversity is a value that only the artistic dimension fully understands”, he added. Morabito underscored the importance of the role of young people in defending and bearing witness to the value of multi-culturalism through art and festivals. These “represent an increasingly worthwhile opportunity for cultural exchange between the countries of the Mediterranean”. Culture is a foreign policy instrument tout court, because it makes it possible to break down the walls dividing us and strengthen those that protect us, added Minister Frattini’s Adviser for Cultural Relations, Giovanni Accolla.
Medfilm Festival films will be screened in Rome at the Auditorium della Conciliazione, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Nuovo Cinema Aquila and Villa Medici.