Documentary on truffle hunters to open the festival on Truffle Day • Attractive Italian films dominating this year’s program
Motovun Film Festival takes place in the heart of the truffle land – Motovun Forest is famous for this precious fungus and its taste and smell have lured many a traveler to the Mirna Valley. This is why the festival (27 – 31 July) opens with the acclaimed documentary The Truffle Hunters, the last year’s winner of film lovers’ hearts.
This film, directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, premiered at the prestigious Sundance festival. It tells us about a group of experienced truffle hunters from Piedmont (Italy) who provide this delicacy for the world’s wealthiest chefs and gourmets. While the fashionable world is scrambling for their prey, they live the life of humble eccentrics who love their tracking dogs and keep their own private world away from the world’s greed.
Their Istrian truffle-hunting colleagues will have a chance to share their experiences; in cooperation with their association, the first day of the festival will also be the Truffle Day, marked by this subterranean delicacy.
The opening film is only the beginning of the Italian stories, because this festival edition will be marked by three Italian premieres with lots of acclaim from major festivals under their belt. Coming from Venice Film Festival is the Best Script Award-winning film The Predators by Pietro Castellitto. It is a black-humor story about two seemingly incompatible families. The members of the former one are middle-class intellectuals and those of the latter one are proletarian fascists. A radical action leads to a showdown revealing that no one is what they seem and that, in the end of the day, we are all predators.
The film Padrenostro takes place in the 1970s – the “years of lead” – and is based on a true story that took place in director Claudio Noce’s childhood. After sustaining wounds in a terrorist attack, the hitherto untouchable chief of police becomes vulnerable and insecure. His son tries to take comfort from a life-changing friendship. The lead actor, Pierfrancesco Favino, won Best Actor in Venice.
Assandira, a film by the popular Sardinian filmmaker Salvatore Mereu, comes with a special recognition of the Federation of Italian Cinema Clubs at Venice Film Festival. It addresses a familiar theme: the modern tourist industry’s impact on traditional communities and the changes it brings. The film’s hero is a traditional Italian peasant. His son and daughter-in-law are returning from Berlin with the idea to turn his farm into a profitable tourist complex. After this decision, their lives will never be the same.
Motovun Film Festival will be showing these treats in cooperation with the Italian Cultural Institute. Besides in the 18-film-strong main program, Italian authors will be represented in the children’s Buzz@teen program in Buzet (22-25 July) and in the short-film program, the winner of which will once again compete for a European Film Academy award. The complete festival program will be announced on 1 July, when advance tickets will also go on sale.
