page_title: People and Religions – Terni Film Festival
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: People and Religions – Terni Film Festival / History
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Popoli e Religioni - Terni Film Festival (platea)
context_page_description: People and Religions – Terni Film Festival is an international film festival, which takes place annually in November at the CityPlex Politeama Lucioli in Terni and at many other venues around the town. It deals with interfaith dialogue, spirituality in cinema, immigrant integration, visual education and activities for prisoners.
  For two consecutive years, the festival was awarded the Medal of the President of the Italian Republic. It has been organized by ISTESS, Institute of Theological and Historical-Social Studies, directed by Stefania Parisi. Honorary president of the festival is Krzysztof Zanussi, Polish film director; the artistic director is Arnaldo Casali.
  Promoted by the diocese of Terni Narni Amelia and by the Episcopal Conference of Umbria, the festival enjoys the patronage of the Municipality of Terni and the Pontifical Council for Culture, with the support of the Umbria Region, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, as well as the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Terni e Narni.
context_section_description: The festival was conceived in 2005 by the then Bishop of Terni Vincenzo Paglia (spiritual counsellor of the community of Sant'Egidio, currently the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life) with the aim of creating a personal and religions dialogue through cinematographic art: a "meeting of civilizations" in response to the "clash of civilizations" raised after the 11th September.
  The first event was inaugurated on the Saturday, 19 November 2005 in the film studios of Papigno, at that time owned by Cinecittà and Roberto Benigni, who had used them for the filming of La Vita è Bella [Life Is Beautiful], Pinocchio, La Tigre e la Neve [The Tiger and the Snow] and the TV special L’ultimo del Paradiso.
  The Godfather of the Festival was Carlo Fuscagni, founder of the Umbria Film Commission and then president of Cinecittà Holding. Artistic direction was done by Carlo Chatrian, who was then the deputy director of the Alba Film Festival and currently is the director of the Locarno Festival.
  In 2006 the artistic direction responsibilities were handed down to Arnaldo Casali, Matteo Ceccarelli and Alessandro Minestrini. During that time the ‘friendship’ was initiated with Maria Grazia Cucinotta and Krzysztof Zanussi, who in 2011 became the Honorary President of the Festival. Zanussi was also the founder of the network of European film festivals. During the festival he met on stage Riccardo Leonelli, an actor who was later starring in his films: Interior Voices (2009) and Foreign Body (2015).
  In 2009, in the context of the Focus on Africa, the project of the director Paolo Bianchini Il sole dentro [The Sun inside] was presented to the public for the first time. This film focused on the story of Yaguine and Fodè: two children from Guinea who died in 1999, hidden in the cargo compartment of an airplane heading to Brussels, where they wanted to deliver a letter "to the Rulers of Europe." This project was then still only in the stage of screenplay preparation: a scene was played live by Francesco Salvi (Italian actor) and two children from the Terni African community. In the following years, premiers of the film were shown and in 2012 the work was finally completed.
  In 2010 the festival presented the show Il Giullare di Assisi [The Jester of Assisi] with an unprecedented San Francesco comedy  (based on historical sources and studies) played by Francesco Salvi and Fabio Bussotti. On this special occasion, Fabio Bussotti played the role of Friar Leone (at the age of 21), just upon his return from winning the Silver Ribbon Award for Liliana Cavani's Film.
  In 2011, Liliana Cavani, receiving the Angelo alla Carriera Award, announced her intention to shoot a third film on St Francis of Assisi, which was then released in 2014. In the same year, the screenwriter Pierluigi Frassineti joined the artistic direction and in 2013 he was joined by film director Oreste Crisostomi. Since 2014, the artistic direction has returned to Arnaldo Casali.
  In 2015 the festival opened in the aftermath of the Paris bombings. A Polish video maker, Maria Lis, a student of the Paris Film School, who the lived in one of the areas affected, reported that she had luckily escaped the massacre because she had left Paris for the Terni Festival. The focus of that year's Festival was on Morocco and Islam, in response to the wave of racial hatred and Islamophobia following the attack on the “Charlie Hebdo” magazine and the murder of a Terni boy by a Moroccan drug dealer in the square right in front of the ISTESS centre.
  This climate of tension led to special safety measures during the festival (in particular the inauguration day attended by the President of the Region, Catiuscia Marini, and the Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti) and the controversy raised by the Italian newspaper "Libero" for the involvement of the Young Muslims of Italy Association.
  In 2016, a short film focused on the Paris bombings: Salaam StDenis2015 by Federica Pacifico took part in the competition. Also in 2016, the festival was preceded by a special event at the Lyrick Theatre in Assisi, where the French f
caption: People and Religions - Terni Film festival "Babele"
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