Aldo Spiniello, in charge of programming at the Laceno d’Oro International Film Festival, agrees that the event, now celebrating its 49th edition, foregrounds documentary more prominently than ever before.
The festival, set up in the late 1950s by critics and intellectuals Camillo Marino and Giacomo Donofrio, under the guidance of legendary Italian auteur Pier Paolo Pasolini, has always shown non-fiction and drama features side by side – and has always focused on films with social and political relevance.
However, the difference now is that in the 2024 edition (which started this weekend), all the titles in the main competition are either straight documentaries or have very strong documentary elements within them.
“This choice is not because we are obsessed with documentary but because we think that documentary films today are the form in which you can try to make something more original and be freer in your connection with reality.”
Audiences in Avellino have gradually come to accept and cherish the emphasis on non-fiction features. There was a time when they were a little nonplussed by the programming choices. “But they were educated by watching the films, and they started to like and appreciate documentary…I think the audience has to be motivated and has to be educated,” says Spiniello.
There is certainly a wide range of non-fiction fare to choose from.
“We have straight documentaries like We Are Inside by Farah Kassem and Rising up at Night by Nelson Makengo, and some films that are between fiction and documentary. The first part of the Alexey Fedorchenko film New Berlin is documentary, maybe mockumentary if you want, and the second part is totally fiction,” the programmer reflects on the very varied selection of docs on offer in Avellino.
Meanwhile, Spiniello cites competition title Invention by US director Courtney Stephens, about a daughter searching for the truth about her conspiracy theorist father, as hovering “between fiction and reality…that is maybe the most interesting way for thinking about the connection between cinema and reality.”
Half a century ago, festival founder Marino was a huge admirer of post-war Italian cinema – and its influence can still be felt in Avellino today.
“Camillo was a very strange man. He was totally a fan of Neorealism – Rossellini, De Sica, Zavatini,” Spiniello rattles off names of some of the revered filmmakers and screenwriters whose work Marino so revered. Zavatini, who worked on the scripts of such classics as Bicycle Thieves and Rome, Open City, was very involved in the Avellino Festival in these days.
One of the guests of honour this week is prolific Arnaud Desplechin, whose fiction films have screened many times in Cannes. Desplechin will be giving a masterclass next weekend and Spiniello quickly points out that his latest feature, Filmlovers! (which premiered in Cannes in May) is…a documentary, or, at least, partly one. The French director joins an exalted list of special guests which in recent years has also included figures like Chinese master Jia Zhangke, Paul Schrader, Ken Loach, Alexander Sokurov and Abel Ferrara.
“Many of these directors have made documentaries but, in any case, they are always interested in the connection between cinema and reality,” Spiniello observes.
Another guest of honour is Valerio Mastandrea, also giving a masterclass. Mastandrea is a much-loved Italian actor and occasional director. Spiniello points out that many of his films, for example docudramas like My Class (2013), in which the actor plays a teacher, have a strong social and political undertow.
Fedorchenko’s competition title New Berlin (about a filmmaker who travels to Colombia with his 18-year-old daughter to solve the mystery of the disappearance of his sister) might be regarded by some as a contentious selection. It has a Russian director and is Russian produced. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many other festivals have been fiercely resisting showing Russian movies – but Spiniello defends the programming choice.
“Actually, we watch movies for what they are – for the message they have inside,” the programmer insists that all titles are considered primarily on artistic grounds. “In the last years, there has been the move to ostracise Russian films in festivals. Now, the same is happening with Israeli films. But the other side is that the directors are not responsible for the politics of their country and the choices that their governments make.”
Spiniello adds that Fedorchenko’s films have always taken a critical attitude toward the authorities and that he stands against wars and censorship. “It could be the communist dictatorship or the dictatorship today by Putin. In his films, we always found freedom and also the possibility to keep the roots of tradition and history [alive]…he was always a free man.”
As for the way the film was financed, he remembers remarks by Jia Zhangke who once observed that it was impossible for him to make films in China without public support – even when those films end up censored or banned.
“And the Russian history of cinema is closely bound to the government. For example, without government money, we probably wouldn’t have Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov and Pudovkin.”
The programmer acknowledges that there are many important Ukrainian directors whose work he could have shown but adds: “we are not here to make a balance, like in geo-politics. We just choose the films for what they are, and the message that they have.”
“In the main competition of the big festivals like Venice or Cannes, I think documentary is still a…taboo,” Spiniello continues. He acknowledges that docs are now winning major awards at these festivals but argues that most tend to be very conventional affairs. More experimental and adventurous work is consigned to sidebar sections. However, in Avellino, such titles are found front and centre.
You won’t find an industry section in Avellino – and for good reason. Spiniello believes that many other festivals pay lip service to industry only in order to secure institutional financing.
“This is a complex choice because there are a lot of festivals that now have also an industry part but this is more to have funding from the government than a real engagement in distribution and sales,” he states. As a critic as well as a programmer, he argues that a far more effective way to help niche films is to show them, discuss them and get audiences excited about them, just as he hopes will be happening in Avellino this week.
The festival, which opened at the weekend, runs until 8th December.
