Since 2014, Giornate degli Autori has added a third key award, the BNL People's Choice Award, to its two other official prizes. The BNL People's Choice Award was instituted thanks to a collaboration with BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas, with the aim of honoring the film on the Giornate competition lineup with the most votes from our audiences. Since then, it has become an award highly sought after by filmmakers and production companies alike, as well as a favorite with audiences, who have made the award the success it is.

Seven years after the award's debut, Giornate has reached out to all the filmmakers of the winning films to ask for their views on the roads their films have traveled as well as the future of festivals, in the light of the global COVID-19 crisis. This is what they told us.

Exterior. Day. Lido

A convoy of mobility scooters taking four elderly actors and actresses from our film The Farewell Party in festive outfits stops by the red carpet. 

That was an unforgettable image that was burned into our memory. And that's also how we started our journey at Giornate degli Autori, an exciting journey, with many highlights like a long standing ovation from the audience and winning the BNL People's Choice Award and the Brian Award. 

Winning the People's Choice Award is one of the most important awards we have received; it allowed us to share our ideas and feelings with a wide audience all over the world. From the Venice Lido The Farewell Party sailed to more than twenty-five countries, from Germany and the Netherlands to Japan, Canada and the US. And we discovered that people all over the world can relate to and share the same dilemmas as our characters who invented a self-euthanasia machine.   

We are still in the middle of one of the most unique universal crises in history, figuring out what is real and how to keep ourselves and our surroundings safe. Filmmaking is changing without the help of COVID-19. New technologies are being developed without the need for locations or extras. For us that means thinking of telling smaller stories with fewer characters and even going back to short films. We love the idea of going back to drive-in cinema and open-air screenings and we hope to see films on the big screen again soon.

The film saw the light at Giornate degli Autori, a great way to come into the world. I'll always remember our delegation setting off on foot from the Villa degli Autori to the screening room, the hushed silence during the screening and the lively debate afterwards. From that point on, the film traveled the world over, winning over forty awards. It was an intense experience seeing how universal this film really was, stirring up the same emotions wherever it was shown. And the Venice Film Festival was the first to see that about the film, since it was the first to select it for its lineup. My fondest memory is of the Tunisian premiere, in a theater packed with three thousand people at the Carthage Film Days, where my film racked up over five awards. Then there was the screening at the Reykjavik Film Festival, with Bjork in attendance she hugged me tightly afterwards.

Films are one of our few allies in coping with our fear of others, which risks growing even worse during this unique health crisis. How can we go on connecting with each other and creating bonds, with us wearing masks and practicing social distancing? Cinema can protect us so we can still experience the emotions of human beings, in whatever part of the world they find themselves. It's our tool for coming together, joining forces. The film industry is faced with a huge challenge only heightened by the COVID pandemic, and that is our relationship with seeing films in a theater. After all, walking into a dark theater, with an enormous screen in front of us, and sharing the experience of the palpable emotion in the air with all the other people there is a priceless collective moment, magic and even mystical. It must be defended and kept alive, and we need to fight to keep the cinemas in operation after this crisis is over, and preserve this collective experience for the future. Festivals play a key role in pointing the way to recovery and drawing audiences back into theaters.

After winning the BNL People's Choice Award at Giornate, I received many invitations from international film festivals around the world. Thank you, Giornate degli Autori, for choosing Pamilya Ordinaryo that year: we will never forget that! Fast forward to 2020, and Pamilya Ordinaryo is available on Netflix (in some territories).

I'm hoping for the best, I hope we can still make beautiful, memorable films despite the limitations imposed by this pandemic, and go on to show these films at all the film festivals worldwide. As Maya Angelou said, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."  

Since Giornate, Longing has toured dozens of festivals, including events like Toronto and Busan, as well as Munich, Istanbul and many more. It has been screened in cinemas and aired on television in many countries, has taken part in the European Film Academy competitions, and we are currently signing a remake of the film in the US and Canada.

As for COVID-19, I am optimistic. This pandemic will pass in about half a year and the world will get back to normal, which includes watching films in cinemas. Meanwhile, the really big dangers are waiting patiently, and we need to prepare for them and reduce global warming as much as possible. Because all the air conditioning in the cinemas will not succeed in overcoming the sorrow and sadness that will be flooding humanity very soon if we don't'.

Between going to festivals and international releases, my film has traveled all over, from Brazil and Argentina to Russia, Korea and Japan, plus the United States and all through Europe. And yet and I'm not just saying this! it's Venice and Giornate that I've always been particularly attached to, since I was starting out, so even though it's the least exotic of the above, in my book it's the most rewarding experience.

I feel that this health crisis will act as a catalyst for something that was already happening, and I'm convinced that festivals will always be essential: to orient audiences (whether at the cinema or at home) and offset the power of the big financial backers. As far as content is concerned, I feel a need as a viewer even more than a filmmaker for big steps in the way of storytelling. It's a longing for changes we can't even imagine yet, and I'm sure they will come, as they often have, in times of uncertainty and technological discontinuity. Which is just why it's essential that filmmakers hold on to (and even increase) their creative freedom. And this is where film festivals play a crucial role.

After my participation in Giornate degli Autori, I had the opportunity to travel around the world to present Arab Blues: at the Toronto Film Festival, Busan, BFI London, Stockholm, JCC Tunis, Washington etc… It was such a gift to meet and talk to various audiences and to see how they react to this film. After this tour, Arab Blues was released in France a few weeks before the lockdown and it sold nearly 330,000 tickets!

Despite the crisis, I remain optimistic about filmmaking. People will always need films or any kind of visual content. I am working on my second feature film, and I try not to be influenced by the current situation. The industry will have to adapt to a certain extent, but it will find its way out.