Lo Schermo dell’arte Film Festival Returns to Florence for Ninth Edition

The ninth edition of Lo Schermo dell’arte Film Festival opens November 16 at Cinema La Compagnia in Florence, featuring artist films, documentaries, talks, and exhibitions. The festival, directed by Silvia Lucchesi, has received Creative Europe/MEDIA funding for a second consecutive biennium. The opening includes the exhibition VISIO. Outside The Black Box curated by Leonardo Bigazzi, showcasing works from 12 artists of the VISIO European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images, with Elena Mazzi receiving the VISIO Young Talent Acquisition Prize from the Seven Gravity Collection. Opening night presents the Italian premiere of Pierre Bismuth's Where is Rocky II? (2016), a documentary about his search for a fake boulder by Ed Ruscha hidden in the Mojave Desert in 1979. Other highlights include the European premiere of Luca Trevisani's Sudan (2016), co-produced by the festival, and premieres of Cyprien Gaillard's Nightlife (2015), Yto Barrada's Faux Départ (2015), and Yuri Ancarani's The Challenge (2016), the latter awarded at the Locarno Festival. The Sguardi section features documentaries on Robert Frank, Eva Hesse, and David Hockney. In collaboration with Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Michael Schindhelm's The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg will screen during the Ai Weiwei. Libero exhibition. The festival also hosts the final part of Feature Expanded, a training program for artists making their first feature film, supported by Creative Europe/MEDIA.