The third edition of PerSO, the “Social Film Festival” for social documentaries, will take place in Perugia from 23 September to 1 October 2017. Guests from all over the world will be present at the event and there will be more than thirty titles in the competition, with meetings, debates, conferences and screenings enlivening the four theatres of the historic centre (Méliès, PostModenissimo, Sant’Angelo and Zenith).
Giovanni Piperno, among the most awarded documentarian, is the new President of the Festival. The Art Direction is managed by Giacomo Caldarelli, Ivan Frenguelli and Andrea Mincigrucci, young cinema operators who realized the PostModernissimo, the first multiplex in the historic centre of Perugia.
Italian premiere La Bataille de Mossoul (out of competition) by French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy will open the Festival.
Same as last year, alongside the Italian premieres of the “PerSo Award” section, there will be documentaries which have already been awarded in important international festivals (the “PerSo Masterpiece” section is dedicated to them), and the short films of the “PerSo Short Award” section.
The programme ranges from the border between Croatia and Slovenia (Borders by Damjan Kozole) to the Baltic Sea (Last Season by Slawomir Witek), the re-enactment of the Armenian genocide (The Others by Ayse Polat), Eastern Europe (Treblinka by Sérgio Tréfaut), China (A Yangtze Landscape by Xu Xin) and South America (El Futuro Perfecto by Nele Wohlatz). Other topics concern the cruel rituals of poaching (Safari by Ulrich Seidl) and the look at the new Italian realities (Cinema Grattacielo by Marco Bertozzi, Liberami by Federica Di Giacomo, Varichina by Mariangela Barbanente and Antonio Palumbo).
Six juries will evaluate the competing films. Distributor Vieri Razzini, film directors Wilma Labate and Giovanni Cioni, producer Wout Conijn and film critic Maurizio Di Rienzo will compose the official jury. A special jury will be composed of women inmates, in cooperation with Capanne prison in Perugia, another one of the refugees and the asylum seekers, and the one of the editorial staff of Film TV. Viewers will be asked to vote too, awarding a prize in the “PerSo Award” section. The partnership with the Solinas Documentary Prize for Cinema is one of the 2017 innovations.
PerSo is organised by the Foundation “La Città del Sole” – Onlus, with the support of MiBACT (the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism), Umbria Region, the Municipality of Perugia, the University of Perugia, the University for Foreigners of Perugia and A.Di.S.U. (the Agency for the Right to University Study), besides the partnerships with regional entities and important national organisations.
