Matera 2019

Reflections and connections

From James Watt's first patented steam engine to the treaties to combat global warming, the last three hundred years of climate history have seen a single major player: the human race.

Whoever said that the Renaissance only happened in the centre and north of Italy? Let’s take a fresh look, starting from the South –  from the shores of the Mediterranean, the age-old crossroads of culture and civilisation, people and the arts.

'The horse paws the ground, | the bells ring out, | crack the whip': Cavalleria Rusticana is arriving at the Sassi di Matera! This is courtesy of 'Abitare l’Opera', a project that aims to bring the arias of great operas from the past to different and unusual venues, in collaboration with the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, which is one of the greatest opera houses in Italy and worldwide.

'Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself in Matera'. No, Dante’s words have not been changed; this is an initiative by Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari. In fact, it’s a challenge to turn Dante’s masterpiece into a play and to use the whole city of Matera as a stage.

Is it possible to become a local ‘Materano’ for one day? Of course! ‘People, Places and Purposes’ allows tourists to transform into ‘temporary citizens’, to become an integral part of daily life in Basilicata and explore a fresh, authentic and unedited Matera, not easily available to the traditional transient tourist.

Cinema is a free space – cinema is participation. As Giorgio Gaber might say, this is the objective of Formula Cinema. 

This project gives a voice to those who have lost theirs in a terrible journey and in the difficult circumstances of a new life, by galvanising their outlook, commitment and all the little things that make life worth living.

Cinema and poetry seen as a lingua franca to bring together peoples, civilisations and cultures: this is the objective of Rete Cinema Basilicata, to seek connections and points of contact between the different European countries in the Mediterranean through cinema and the universal language of poetry.

People coming, people going. People also deciding to stay in Basilicata, where others are leaving in large numbers and a land left by itself. 'Storylines | The Lucanian Ways' is dedicated to these people. The project, presented by the Youth Europe Service, consists of the docufilm 'I’m going where I come from', written by Luigi Vitelli with the scientific consultant by Vito Teti and directed by Nicola Ragone, and a video exhibition.