Milano Design Film Festival

A long black carpet – starting from the road and driving into the multiplex cinema – will be welcoming spectators at Anteo spazioCinema, headquarters of the second edition of Milano Design Film Festival, the event sponsored and supported by Comune di Milano and sponsored by Milano Expo 2015.

A strong sign that the organizers, Antonella Dedini and Silvia Robertazzi have chosen to inform Milan about the importance and the meaning of design and architecture. On this occasion, via Milazzo 9 multiplex cinema will be renewed with the support of the sponsors that are part of the project, thus creating a temporary design site, inside the historical Milan-based venue dating back to the Thirties.

Organisers’ invitations represent very well the festival’s multifaceted nature. On the one side the scientific investigation of Porzia Bergamasco, design and architecture critic and journalist; on the other Letizia Cariello’s poetic vision. Cariello, consistently with her artistic research, faces the link between music and architecture.

The opening of the festival is scheduled for Thursday 9th evening at 9.00 pm and from Friday 10th screenings will be starting everyday at 1 pm, going on until Midnight. On schedule, spectators will be given the opportunity to see auteur film, biographical narrative, as well as investigations and poetic visions, complaint works and discoveries of monumental works that are little known by non experts. Buildings, products, stories and thoughts that hide any form of creativity and expressivity are told, explained and sometimes novelized, giving spectators back not just what they are – either an object or a building – but their genesis and their relationship with the historical, social and economic context.

Opening the festival is the Cathedrals of Culture project, curated by Wim Wenders (the next Honorary Golden Bear 2015) that was presented on 64th Berlinale in the early 2014. The six buildings introduced and directed by six different directors, propose a full immersion from the point of view of film – movies are shot in 3D – and in terms of choice of the buildings, that are first-person narrators of their stories and their lives. So you visit the spaces of Berliner Philarmonie (Wim Wenders), to move among the rooms and archives of Russische Nationalbibliothek based in Saint Petersburg (Michael Glawogger) and to go beyond the gates of Norwegian model prison Haftanstalt Halden (Michael Madsen). To walk among Salk Institute Californian buildings (Robert Redford) or to be spectator of Opernhaus in Oslo (Margret Olin). And at last to follow the development of a whole day inside Centre Pompidou in Paris (Karim Ainouz). The film is distributed in Italy by I Wonder Pictures and it will be showing in theatres thanks to the collaboration with UnipolBiografilmCollection and together with Sky 3D it will be possible to see it on television.

Trials and research are partly the flagship of the festival, since it proposes movies from the early XX century, such as Neues Wohnen. Haus Gropius by Richard Paulick (1926) and Les Mystères du Château du Dé, shot in 1929 by Man Ray in Villa Noailles, in Hyères.

The festival moreover is a means of enquiry: the relationship between the city and architecture, city planning and social fabric, pollution and environment. On show, slices of life organized in the occupied buildings: the financial center in Caracas, the present Torre David examined by directors Daniel Schwartz and Markus Kneer; in metropolis in transformation: Instanbul in Ekumenopolis, by Ucu Olmayan Sehir; in the lost polluted areas of the planet, accompanied by a special correspondent: Jeremy Irons, the messenger of a more aware life, in Trashed by Candida Brady.

MDFF also aims at becoming a new “rendez-vous” for Italian design and new thematic Italian productions. During the four days event, works of young film makers will be introduced. These filmmakers have developed their short films thinking about the festival. They tell about the birth of industrial design, of the big collaborations of designers with enlightened companies, the transformation of homes and domestic environments, new generation objects and furnishing accessories.
These key transformation signs are the topics of MDFF 2014 program. From Love till I die by Michele Bonechi, who describes Fabio Novembre’s world, to Sette miliardi about Andrea Branzi and A casa di Carla. Un interno italiano about Giulio Iacchetti's work, both by Max Rommel; from Design is One. Lella and Massimo Vignelli by Kathy Brew and Roberto Guerra, to the amateur filming of the conference held by Achille Castiglioni at International Design Conference of Aspen in 1989 and recovered by Flos for MDFF. Up to the interview to Ettore Sotsass, published in the Design Interviews series at Anna Pitscheider’s Alessi Museum. Also, on schedule, the documentary movie Dove vivono gli architetti by Francesca Molteni and Davide Pizzigoni. Eight stories about eight international architects such as: Shigeru Ban, Mario Bellini, David Chipperfield, Massimiliano e Doriana Fuksas, Zaha Hadid, Marcio Kogan, Daniel Libeskind, Studio Mumbai, Bijoy Jain.

The video-documentary Domus Voices – A Map of Urban Sentiment will be projected during the Festival. The film recounts a human landscape of Milan, a map of urban sentiment plotted out by famous interpreters of architecture, art and design who were asked by Domus to share their impressions and visions of life in the city. The resulting unusual perspective pertains to Milan, but can be seen in a broader way as pertaining to all cities. Architects will be reminded of the importance of designing in a people-centred way, with creativity and sensitivity – a message that comes across with empathetic force, carried by the immediacy of the video's cinematographic language. In an additional homage to the city of Milan, where both Domus and the Milano Design Film Festival have their roots, Domus will present Domus Voices – Sites and Itineraries, a series of seven short excerpts from Domus Voices – A Map of Urban Sentiment. In this video, architects, designers and other professionals such as Alessandro Mendini, Patricia Urquiola, Manolo de Giorgi and Elio Fiorucci reveal their favourite Milanese spots and tell anecdotes about their own private side of the city.

On Sunday October 12th, participants to the “K.I.S.S. Milano i luoghi dove mangiamo” contest will be awarded two prizes. This contest was launched during the latest Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan. The jury and the audience in the room will be voting.

From October 1st on MDFF site (milanodesignfilmfestival.com), a detailed program will be published. The web will turn into the main megaphone of the chronicle of the event in real time, also thanks to the help of Sae Institute students that will create a special editorial office for the event. In the movie theaters of Anteo spazioCinema, the paper catalogue will be available that – as well as the synopsis of the films – will contain insights on some of the film topics.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning, workshops and conversations with lecturers and international cinema and architecture experts are scheduled. These institutions will take part to the conferences: Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio - Università della Svizzera Italiana, Image di Marco Brizzi, SAE Institute Milano, Sky arte HD, Ultrafragola Channels.
The final evening – on Sunday October 12th – will welcome Lorenzo Palmeri, designer and musician, that will present his latest album erbamatta with a preview of his Memorie Selettive video and a live set.

9–12 ottobre 2014
Milano Film Festival
a cura di Antonella Dedini e Silvia Robertazzi

Workshop e conversazioni:

Venerdì 10, h. 10.30
Dal web al satellite – Comunicare con il video
Ultrafragola Channels e Sky Arte HD
intervengono Didi Gnocchi e Dino Vannini

Sabato 11, h. 10.30
Filmare l’architettura
Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio – Università della Svizzera Italiana
intervengono Marco Muller, Stan Neumann e Marco Della Torre

Domenica 12, h. 10.30
Design by video
Image di Marco Brizzi
intervengono Marco Brizzi, Franco Raggi, Alessandro Scandurra e Filippo Romano

Creare un documentario con smartphone e tablet
SAE Institute Milano
intervengono Giulio Fiorito e Daniele Raina.