ISCHIA FILM FESTIVAL

The Ischia Film Festival placed under the High Patronage of the European Parliament and with the Accession of the Presidents of the Italian Republic (Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Giorgio Napolitano and Sergio Mattarella) is an international film competition joined each year by hundreds of works from different countries by virtue of its specific theme dedicated to the cultural diversification of the territory through audiovisuals.

This theme, very particular and unique in the panorama of international film festivals, has gathered in these first twenty editions the presence on the island of Ischia of distinguished personalities from the world of international cinema, including 14 Oscar winners and hundreds of directors and actors from all over the world who have adhered with strong participation to the objectives of the festival, including the Oscar Oliver Stone, Allan Starsky, Ken Adam, Vittorio Storaro, Carlo Rambaldi, Bille August, John Howe, Alan Lee, Gabriele Salvatores, Gabriella Cristiani, Osvaldo Desideri, directors Peter Greenaway, Pupi Avati, Carlo Verdone, Carlo Lizzani, Christopher Lambert, Luciano Emmer, Mario Monicelli, Amos Gitai, Abbas Kiarostami, Abel Ferrara, Pupi Avati, Krzysztof Zanussi, Gabriele Muccino, Pavel Loungine, Benoit Jacquot, Pasquale Squitieri, Margarethe von Trotta, Sergio Rubini, Giuliano Montaldo actors John Turturro, Jean Sorel, Toni Servillo, Claudia Cardinale, Alba Rohrwacher, Silvio Orlando, Alessandro Borghi, Mariagrazia Cucinotta, Lunetta Savino, Luca Argentero, Sabrina Impacciatore, Isabella Ragonese, Massimo Ghini, and hundreds of other directors and actors from all over the world. Due to the particular identity of the festival, already at the planning stage, it was decided not to hold the screenings in traditional movie theaters, but to identify in open-air spaces of proven artistic and cultural value as suitable venues for programming.

For this reason, the festival’s screenings take place in the exclusive outdoor spaces of the island’s first ancient village: the Aragonese Castle. The screenings are combined with a breathtaking landscape, making each evening of the festival a unique experience in which a now loyal audience participates every year, booking a vacation to Ischia well in advance to be able to enjoy by day the sea and the well-being offered by the island’s thermal waters, its parks and spas known worldwide for their beauty and atmosphere, and in the evening, at dusk, going to the Castle to walk among the glimpses of an ancient village that rises in the middle of the sea, finally sitting in an outdoor area under the stars to be able to view films that otherwise one would not have the opportunity to know, listen to interviews with the authors and most likely cross paths with such characters in other contexts during the evening.

The Aragonese Castle, in fact, during the Ischia Film Festival is transformed into a cinema town where, in different settings (the ruined Baroque Cathedral of the Assumption, Piazza delle Armi, Terrace of the House of the Sun, Piazzale del Carcere Borbonico), open to an always educated and knowledgeable audience, the protagonists of cinema meet, discuss and often establish new collaborations from which sometimes new works were born that later reached the festival in subsequent editions. the Ischia Film Festival has been held since its inception (2003) always on the same dates, that is, from the last Saturday of June to the first Saturday of July, the XXII edition will take place from June 29 to July 6, 2024.