Today "we live a kind of daily body to body between humanity and inhumanity. By now, inhumanity has been cleared, it has even become an element of political propaganda. We are shrouded in darkness. The reading of the daily facts is particularly distressing: from the latest news, that of an 18-year-old birthday party, which ends with the massacre of a poor goat, filmed with the mobile phone, allevicende of Caivano, of Palermo ". This is what Nichi Vendola tells ANSA, who chaired the jury of Bookciak, action! pre-opening event of the Giornate degliAutori that rewards experimental shorts, inspired by books, made by young filmmakers. The theme of the competition this year is 'stories to remain human'.
Inhumanity "is also in the use of women's bodies as a spicy ingredient, as an object of solicitation of morbid impulses; in the return of war as a paradigm of government of the world - underlines Vendola -. It is in imagining that everything can become a commodity". At the same time, "humanity has never claimed its right to life, happiness and clean air". In all this, "free cinema and not bent to the despotism of the market or to propaganda reasons, is an education to the gaze". Back to Bookciak, Action! The books chosen as inspiration "are small precious jewels, because each has an aspect of the theme linked to the look.
The one on the present, on the urban landscape, but also on how much the control of memory can be a political issue that has to do with power and its ability to manipulate knowledge of the past". To remain human "we must have a critical and free gaze, on the past, on the present and on the future".
Cinema and all other forms of artistic representation "are called into question by the radical nature of the issues of our time. We are at such a decisive point in human history. If a place of fundamental literary, poetic and artistic inspiration like the Mediterranean has become the largest cemetery in the world, you cannot turn your head away."
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