An important positive signal, despite the hard time we are going through: Visioni Fantastiche (Fantastic Visions), the film festival entirely dedicated to schools of Ravenna municipality, has been reconfirmed for its second edition. An announcement making us proud as it proves that the path we are following is the right one, encouraging us to pursue this great audiovisual education project addressed to the viewers of tomorrow. Visioni Fantastiche does not stop, on the contrary: over the next weeks the Festival will make you revisit the best memories of 2019 edition, along with a series of original short films made kindly available by the directors who attended the Festival. Stay home then, and tuned to our YouTube channel: news coming soon!

“It’s not the darkness of the theatre that we miss, or rather, not only that; there’s a whole generation who doesn’t even go at the movies anymore, and who has surpassed also the TV ritual, even in this moment where TV (that seemingly replaced the fireplace around which humans gathered to listen to stories from the dawn of time) has so strongly returned into our lives. Video content is now seen in the most diverse places and contexts, and even if David Lynch said that a film watched on a smartphone is not even a film anymore (and we definitely agree on this), the audience will keep watching movies on all kinds of devices, in the same way it will keep going to the theatre once the emergency will be over. So no, what we miss is not the darkness of the theatre. What we miss, and what we’ll keep missing in the event the health crisis does not improve, is the light of the theatre instead, the moment when the film ends and the director comes on the stage to receive applause or silence; we’ll miss the moment right before and right after the vision of the film, just as we’ll miss viewers’ reactions, Q&As with directors, all discussions in the foyer and quickly eaten sandwiches not to lose a single frame, but also dinners with guests and journalists, dailys, interviews.
Ravenna Nightmare Film Fest and Visioni Fantastiche are a privileged observatory from which seeing the best of recent international cinematographic production. Two different but confining festivals because where one’s dark side ends, the other’s bright one begins. So, in this period of such immobility, the great festival archive comes to our aid. Technology and generosity: technology allows us to show you some gems of the past on our YouTube channel; generosity is what distinguishes our authors who, without much thought, answered to our call when we asked them whether they would have authorized to make some of their works temporarily available online for free. This is where our project starts, inspired to the call “culture does not stop”, consisting in the goal of keeping you company until the beginning of the events with continuous updates and a short film selection, often introduced by the filmmakers, that were highly appreciated during last editions of Ravenna Nightmare Film Fest and Visioni Fantastiche. Hoping to see you all soon, at the movies.”

Franco Calandrini
Artistic Director Ravenna Nightmare Film Fest and Visioni Fantastiche