In 2021, the Bergamo Film Meeting unspooled entirely online on account of the pandemic. This year will see the festival celebrating its 40th edition from 26 March to 3 April in hybrid form, unfolding both online via the bergamofilmmeeting.stream. platform and in person. An acousmatic screening of a restored 35mm copy of Andrej Tarkovskij’s 1979 masterpiece Cin’Acusmonium: Stalker is set to open the BFM. “At this point in time, Russia is considered a monster politically speaking, but its culture still carries considerable weight”, stresses Angelo Signorelli, who directs the event with the help of Fiammetta Girola.

Dedicated, as ever, to new European authors, the BFM’s international competition will present 7 fiction features which will battle it out for an audience award and a best director prize, the latter decided upon by an international jury presided over by director Volker Schlondorff and further including Frédéric Boyer (director of the Les Arcs Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival and the RIFF in Reykjavík) and Nicoletta Romeo (film producer, and co-director of the Trieste Film Festival). All of the works in question are Italian premieres, aside for one international premiere in the form of Mathieu Gérault’s South Sentinel [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Mathieu Gérault
ficha de la película], whose release in France is scheduled for late April. Nö [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Dietrich Brüggemann
ficha de la película], by Germany’s Dietrich Brüggemann, is a thirteen-episode film about love, while the other title hailing from Germany, The Seed [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película] by Mia Maariel Meyer, tackles the theme of exploitation at work. From Spain, there’s The Radio Amateur [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película], Iker Elorrieta’s debut about a young autistic man obsessed with radio engineering; from Romania Blue Moon [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Alina Grigore
ficha de la película] by Alina Grigore, presented in competition in San Sebastián and the victor of the Cork Film Festival; from Slovenia there’s Inventory [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Darko Sinko
ficha de la película] by Darko Sinko, exploring the dilemma of a man hit by a bullet for no apparent reason; and last but not least, there’s Krystof [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película] by Zdenek Jiráský, which is a co-production between the Czech Republic and Slovakia examining the purges against Czech religious institutions which took place in the Stalinist era.

The Close-Up section will consist of 12 independent documentaries hailing from abroad. These range from Passion [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película] by Maja Borg (Sweden/Spain) to It Is Not Over Yet [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película] by Louise Detlefsen (Denmark), The Sailor [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película] by Lucia Kašova (Slovakia), Calendar Girls [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película] by Maria Loohufvud and Love Martinsen (Sweden), Yonaguni by Anush Hamzehian and Vittorio Mortarotti (France), Dealing with Death by Paul Sin Nam Rigter (the Netherlands), Venezia altrove by Elia Romanelli (Italy), Before They Meet [+lee también:
crítica
ficha de la película] by Vytautas Puidokas (Belgium/Lithuania/Croatia/Norway) and, out of competition, Lotta di classe, il cinema dei ragazzi di Emilio Sidoti by Demetrio Giacomelli (Italy).

The festival’s exploration of European cinema will intensify in the Europe, Now! Line-up, homing in on Bosnia’s Tanis Tanović and Belgium’s Patrice Toye who have both been invited to the event as guests in order to showcase their entire back-catalogue. This section is also offering up a two-day event for sector professionals, in the form of the Film Industry Meetings (28-29 March), providing networking opportunities and a platform for updating attendees on the opportunities offered by festivals, markets, training programmes, and European and national funds.

Priit and Olga Pärn, meanwhile, are set to topline the Auteur Animation line-up, in which the two Estonian directors’ full repertoire of works - totalling 19 titles - is set to be presented in a world premiere. The BFM is also dedicating an exhaustive retrospective to director Costa-Gavras and will screen several films in Italian premieres, including work-in-progress Travelling Ghosts by Thanos Anastopoulos (Greece/Italy), Bella ciao - Per la libertà [+lee también:
tráiler
entrevista: Giulia Giapponesi
ficha de la película] by Giulia Giapponesi (Italy), The Forest Maker [+lee también:
entrevista: Volker Schlöndorff
ficha de la película] by Volker Schlöndorff (Germany) and Vortex [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película] by Gaspar Noé (France).