Some festivals are precious gems. Take Archivio Aperto, brainchild of Home Movies’s archive, a collection of vintage films (mostly amateur) from the 20s to the 80s of the last century. Based in Bologna, Home Movies naturally hosts mostly local audiovisual documents donated by families and collectors, in an enticing display of rétro formats: 8mm, super8, 16mm, 9,5mm, Pathè Baby, some 35mm and of course videotapes. Altogether a massive amount of material (the broadest in Italy) that is carefully taken care of and sometimes re-assembled, with the aid of artists and musicians, until it takes off again, with a new identity, a new twist on its old one or a delicate homage to memory.
Speaking of memory, one of this peculiar festival’s sections covers old footage of Bologna “like it used to be”, all packed in the screenings and openings of the saturdays and sundays. From family memories collected and shown during the Home Movie Day & Home Movie Night this saturday (Saturday, november 5th, Spazio Home Movies Beverara/ Laboratorio delle Idee – via della Beverara, 125/129), to the screening/installation of Luciano Osti’s Bologna dei miei tempi. Alla scoperta della città inedita (Saturday, November 19th, Urban Center – Salaborsa, Piazza Nettuno, 3), with rare footage of Bologna between the ’50s and ’60s, when the growth of the economy completely changed the look and the vibe of urban lifestyle, and yet what looked so modern back then has such a nostalgic flavor for the contemporary viewer.
Nostalgia is also prevailing in the little exploration of life in the Sixties in the Bolognina (literally “little Bologna”: how lovely is that?) area, a popular district just outside the city center, where the very first wave of Chinese migration seen in Bologna took place in that period: the screening comes from the private collection of a local family and will be held on Sunday, december th (Corte 3 – via Franco Bolognese, 22/3A).
Finally, history can also be rediscovered through poetry, which is precisely what aims to do the Il cinema crudele di Patrizia Vicinelli (“The cruel cinema of Patrizia Vicinelli”, Saturday, December 3rd, Aula Magna di S. Cristina – Piazzetta Morandi, 2). This documentary about local experimental poet, visual artist and member of the Sixties avant-garde, who also had a solid relationship with cinema, represents another core interest of Home Movie foundation, that aims to guard and promote experimental, artsy movies, preferably in rétro formats, side by side with the amateurs’ collections. Niche and nostalgia, basically: sounds a lot like Bologna.
Flaneur in Bologna 