Castello di Rivoli Launches Pestifera Film Series on Pandemics

Castello di Rivoli, one of the first museums in Italy to reopen after lockdown, is resuming its program with previously closed exhibitions and launching a summer film series titled Pestifera. From June 26 to July 24, every Friday, the museum's garden will host screenings exploring how cinema has represented pandemics. The series is curated by director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, artist and filmmaker Irene Dionisio, and Distretto Cinema director Fulvio Paganin. It opens on June 26 with Otto Rippert's 1919 silent film Die Pest im Florenz, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death and set during the Black Death, with a new soundtrack by composer Riccardo Mazza. Subsequent films include Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre (1978) on July 3, Lars von Trier's Epidemic (1987) on July 10, Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002) on July 17, and Emanuela Rossi's Buio (2019) on July 24. The series also runs virtually on Cosmo Digitale, the museum's online platform, featuring Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow's The Last Man on Earth (1964). Pestifera concludes in late September with Iranian-Canadian artist and filmmaker Mostafa Keshvari premiering his film Corona (2020), currently in production.