Featuring ‘shockumentaries’ and horror films, the 2016 edition of the Lucca Film Festival and Europa Cinema, March 26 to May 1, is not for the faint of heart. With venues in Lucca, Viareggio and Barga, the festival concentrates most of the screenings and international guest appearances between April 3 and 10.
Among the scheduled guests is Academy Award winner William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist and The French Connection. During the festival, Friedkin will participate in a short documentary about his films’ connections to the music of Lucca-born Giacomo Puccini, the first in a series of Puccini-themed documentaries to be filmed at all subsequent editions of the festival.
George Romero, director of Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead, will be in Versilia from April 7 to 10 to receive a lifetime achievement award and to present several of his cult classics (he’ll also add his footprints to the new Lucca Comics and Games Walk of Fame). From March 26 to May 1, Lucca’s Palazzo Ducale will host ‘George Romero and the New American Horror,’ an exhibition showcasing a collection of posters, flyers, playbills and ephemera related to his career.
From April 2 to May 1, the Villa Argentina in Viareggio will host the exhibition ‘Marco Bellocchio: The Painting Behind the Lens,’ featuring more than 100 works by the Italian director, whose early career in art influenced his aesthetic sensibilities when he made the transition to film.
From April 1 to May 1, the Galleria Comunale and Galleria Bel Canto in Barga will host ‘Wild Gaze: The Mondo Movie World in Italy, Gualtiero Jacopetti,’ which examines the ‘shockumentary’ genre that pervaded Italian cinemas during the 1960s. Full program here.
