Siff 2004 | 1st Edition

SIFF 2004 | THE BEGINNING

The first edition of the event starts on Monday September 18 in Tricase SIFF–Salento International Film FestivalThe inaugural edition of SIFF will highlight the art of cinema, premiering some of the best films from around the world and conveying the spiritual contents of LAIFA (Los Angeles Italian Film Awards), with the charm of Hollywood in Salento. 70 films from 25 countries, meetings and exhibitions, in addition to the Salento Awards (which will be presented, among others, to Michael Cimino and John Savage), constitute the core of the event.

On Saturday September 18th at 8.30pm in Piazza Pisanelli “Thirteen at the table” by Enrico Oldoini will be the tasty prologue to the first edition of the Salento International Film Festival 2004 which will be held in Tricase until Sunday 26th.

The director, in Salento for the filming of the fiction “The Judge Mastrangelo“, will be accompanied by two protagonists of the film Nicolas Vaporidis and Alessandro Benvenuti while awaiting the response of the great Giancarlo Giannini.

“Thirteen at the Table” (also starring Paolo Bonacelli, Kasia Smutniak, Angela Finocchiaro, Maria Amelia Montie and Silvia De Santis) tells the story of a family dispute over an inheritance. Between memories and regrets, the story of Giulio is told who, returning to the farmhouse, revisits his youth and his love passion for the splendid Anna, disputed between all his brothers. Memories that will lead Giulio to make a drastic decision.

The jury chaired by Luigi Sardiello, director of Filmakers Magazine, and composed of Filippo Ascione, screenwriter and producer, Jeff Nuyts, international distributor for Intramovie, Massimo Melillo, journalist of Nuovo Quotidiano di Puglia, and Paolo Pagliaro, president of the Mixer group Media, quickly reached its verdict.

“Il Tramite” is a strong, sincere and balanced film, which reaches straight to the heart”, we read in the motivation. “It rests on an intense story and an accurate screenplay with brilliant and never didactic dialogues. All the film components from the photography to the characterization of the characters, from the editing to the dramatization of the narrative points are supported; continues the jury, “and they support each other “the other with balance without ever prevaricating. The final result is embellished by the acting performances, all of a notable level, with particular praise for the extraordinary performance of “Maurizio Mattioli”

Reali, theater and television director, is on his third film (in addition to various short films and an internet production). After “Laggiù nella Jiungla” (1988) and the success of “In Barca Vela Contramano” (1997) with Valerio Mastandrea, Antonio Catania, and Maurizio Mattioli, he will return to theaters with “Il Tramite” (premiere at the Salento Film Festival) which, as the director explains on his website, “like about ten other films financed by the State with the support of the Guarantee Fund, is blocked by a situation of paralysis, which we hope is temporary, and which depends exclusively on difficulties of a administrative-financial of the production companies that made the aforementioned films”.

“Il Tramite” is an adventure in a station wagon through Italy, a film about the trafficking of illegal immigrants, the story of an Italian, an illegal child, a prostitute and a thug with some mental retardation problems. The cast includes Maurizio Mattioli, Manrico Gammarota, Valerio Foglia Manzillo, Ana Papadopulu, Mohamed Ismail Bayed and Claudio Bigagli.

Among the shorts, Frame of Mind by Simon Joker ultimately prevailed, an intense thriller that highlights Julia’s dark facade, which could be a serious threat to the public and to herself. But the law does not allow the police to detain the woman in custody – a contradiction with unforeseen consequences. The young director Simon Joker was born on March 2, 1980 in Muster, Germany and has just graduated from the Los Angeles Film School with his thesis film Frame of Mind.

The A Window on the World – Documentary section went to Los Zafiros: Music at the Limit of Time by the American Lorenzo De Stefano (2003) which tells the story of the legendary group Los Zafiros, a musical phenomenon that caused a sensation in Cuba in the 1960s and in the early 1970s. The film explores the memories of Manuel Galban and Miguel Cancio, the two surviving members of the Los Zafiros group.

The other awards of the festival went to the director of photography Vittorio Storaro, the set designer Bruno Rubeo, Michael Cimino, John Savage and Robert Minkoffe, the Sicilian actor Enrico Lo Verso and the Salento director Giuseppe Schito (lifetime achievement award).