Filmmaker Festival 2017: New Venue and Focus on Alberto Grifi

The Filmmaker Festival in Milan, a key event for documentary and experimental cinema since 1980, moves to a new location: Casa del Pane – Casello Ovest di Porta Venezia. Running from December 1 to 10, the festival features Prospettiva Grifi, a retrospective and video installation showcasing recently restored materials by Alberto Grifi, marking a decade since his death. Director Luca Mosso notes the festival seeks connections between Grifi's work and selected young filmmakers. The international competition includes 'El mar la mar' by Canadian artist Joshua Bonnetta and anthropologist-filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki, set in the Sonora desert, and 'Dragonfly Eyes' by multimedia artist Xu Bing, made from surveillance footage. Xu Bing has exhibited at the 45th, 51st, and 56th Venice Biennales. The Fuori Formato section is dedicated to Austrian experimental filmmaker Siegfried A. Fruhauf (b. 1976), known for found footage films. Sharon Lockhart's 'Rudzienko' documents workshops at a social rehabilitation center near Warsaw; part of this work was shown at the Polish Pavilion at the last Venice Biennale. Riccardo Giacconi's 'Prologo ed ecfrasi su Alberto Camerini' uses archival footage to tell the story of the singer-songwriter. Alain Cavalier's 'Six Portraits XL' presents portraits of six individuals, originally made for Arte TV.