Bergamo Film Festival Archives

Fun facts about Louis de Funès 2026 | Bergamo Film 2026

Just ahead of the 44th edition of Bergamo Film Meeting which kicks off on the 7th March, we trawled the internet to gather some light-hearted gen on Louis de Funès, one of France’s most beloved comedic legends.

Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza, aka Louis de Funès, was one of the most treasured actors and comedians in European cinema, particularly in France where his films triumphed at the box office from the 1960s to the early 1980s. His was a simple brand of humour that went down a treat far beyond national borders. But he would be fifty before international fame came his way with Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez in 1964 having spend decades in minor roles.

Born in 1914 of Spanish immigrants, de Funès initially trained as a musician and jazz enthusiast, financing himself as a pianist in Parisian bars during the war years. This musical education allowed him to learn all he could about comedic timing, rhythm and continuous variation.

During his defining career, he would star in over 130 films and 100 stage roles, often playing neurotic, high-energy characters. Beyond acting, he was a passionate gardener with a rose variety named after him, and received an honorary César award from Jerry Lewis in 1980 before dying from a heart attack in 1983.

ROSA RODRIGUEZ

Rose Gardener: He loved gardening so much that a vermillion coloured rose variety was named the “Louis de Funès rose” in his honour.

Musical Background: Before his film career, he worked as a jazz pianist in Pigalle, Paris, where his talent for making faces and his high-energy style was popular.

Award from a Peer: In February 1980, he was presented with an honorary César Award by fellow comedic genius Jerry Lewis.

Themed Legacy: A monument in his honor stands in the rose garden of his wife’s castle, the Château de Clermont, where he often stayed.

Family Connection: His son, Olivier de Funès, appeared in several of his films before leaving acting to become an Air France pilot.

Posthumous Tribute: Even decades after his death in 1983, he remains immensely popular, with tributes from all over the world.

LOUIS DE FUNES RETROSPECTIVE | BERGAMO FILM MEETING 2026

Abbas Kiarostami | Retrospective | Bergamo Film Meeting 2026

Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016), the acclaimed Iranian filmmaker, was a master of cinematic minimalism who famously used cars to bypass Iranian censorship, often filming in them to create private spaces in public (according to the Encyclopaedia Iranica).

During a career spanning four decades he would work with famous stars Juliette Binoche, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Isabelle Adjani, Anouk Aimee, Jean-Claude Carriere and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, along with many well known Iranian actors.

Known for his dark glasses, which he wore due to a sensitivity to light, he also had a habit of avoiding the standard “reverse shot” convention in film, refusing to show the face of the person speaking to the main character, and instead keeping the focus on the listener in a style is best described as poetic and minimalist.

After studying Fine Arts at Tehran University, Kiarostami began his career in the 1960s as a graphic designer and illustrator and this led to a prolific number of television commercials – he made over 150 in ‘60s alone – eventually moving on to filmmaking by creating title sequences, notably for Qeysar in 1969. He would direct his first film, a short entitled The Bread and Alley the following year. Featuring a kid, a dog and a crew of newbies this kicked off his interest in naturalistic storytelling and child-centric filmmaking, leading him to establish the Kanoon Centre for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults . His first feature was The Traveller in 1974.

A prolific career saw him involved in the production of over forty films, shorts, dramas and documentaries. Best known are arguably Where Is the Friend’s House (1987), Life, and Nothing More (1992) Through the Olive Trees (1994), his Binoche starrer Certified Copy (2010), and his final feature 24 Frames (2017).

International acclaim came when he started to make films outside Iran. In Italy for Certified Copy, and Like Someone in Love which took him to Tokyo.

Under the patronage of the Kiarostami Foundation

THE FILMS

Khane-ye doust kodjast? (Where Is the Friend’s House?, 1987)
Nema-ye nazdik (Close Up, 1990)
Zendegi va digar hich (And Life Goes On, 1992)
Zire darakhatan zeyton (Through the Olive Trees, 1994)
Ta’m e guilass (Taste of Cherry, 1997)
Bad ma ra khahad bord (The Wind Will Carry Us, 1999)
Dah (Ten, 2002)
Five Dedicated to Ozu (2003)

ABBAS KIAROSTAMI RETROSPECTIVE | BERGAMO FILM MEETING 2026

Otar Ioselliani – Retrospective | Bergamo Film Meeting 2025

This year’s festival pays special tribute to the work of Georgian filmmaker Otar Ioselliani (1934-2023).

Best known for his stylish, often picaresque, satires such as Winter Song, Chasing Butterflies and Favourites of the Moon, the critically acclaimed filmmaker, producer and editor was a keen observer of human behaviour, a talent that won him awards on the international festival circuit at Venice, Cannes and Berlin.

Born in Tbilisi in 1934 Otar Davidovič Iosseliani had a childhood passion for music. He studied piano at the Conservatory in Tbilisi- then part of the Soviet Union- before discovering his metier in film, which would lead to a glittering career from the late 1950s until his final film Chant d’Hiver which world premiered at Locarno Film Festival in 2015 (picture above).

In the 1950s he moved to Moscow where he enrolled in the Faculty of Mathematics, which he later abandoned to attend the renowned VGIK film school, where he had the opportunity to study under the guidance of great masters such as Aleksandr Dovženko and Mikhail Romm.

After honing his craft with short films he graduated in 1961 and made a medium-length film, Aprili, which was never picked up for distribution largely due to Soviet censorship issues, forcing him eventually to seek finance in France.

During the 1960s and 1970s his early films were mired with the same financing issues – Falling Leaves (Giorgobistve, 1966), his first feature film, Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird (Iko shashvi mgalobeli, 1971) and Pastorale (Pastorali, 1976).

A move to Paris in in the early 1980s sparked a new creative phase, with Favorites of the Moon (Les Favoris de la lune, 1984) which followed a series of character all addicted to stealing, figuratively or metaphorically, thorough the story of a collection of 18th porcelain and 19th painting. Then There Was Light (Et la lumière fut, 1989), followed hot on its heels, an ethnographic documentary about the destruction of a small African village. Both films won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

His works in this period engaged in a poetic exploration of the human condition, individual freedom and social dynamics, always with subtle irony and a darkly critical outlook towards the world. Iosseliani’s films are typically Georgian, by his own admission: “optimistic yet aware that everything will end badly”. His inspiration came from René Clair, Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati.

In 1991 he shot Chasing Butterflies (La Chasse aux papillons, 1991), followed by Brigands, Chapter VII (Brigans, chapitre VII , 1995), which garnered a Special Jury Prize in Venice for the third time. This was followed by Farewell, Home Sweet Home (Adieu, plancher des vaches, 1998), which tells the story of a marabout (an African stilt walker) who sneaks into posh parties; Monday Morning (Lundi matin, 2001), which earned him the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlinale; and Gardens in Autumn (Jardins en automne, 2005), featuring a dazzling performance by Michel Piccoli as the protagonist’s mother.

Iosseliani returned to the big screen five years later, with Chantrapas (2009), which chronicles the adventures of a Georgian filmmaker who moves to France to escape the censorship of his country, only to be subjected there to another form of censorship: the economic one. In 2014 he shot his last film, Chant d’hiver, about the absurdity of revolutions and the paradoxical consequences that each of them brings along.

Iosseliani has also been a sophisticated documentary filmmaker over the years; examples include Tudzhi (1964), shot with a hidden camera in the Rustavi Metal Works, in Georgia; Ancient Georgian songs (Dzveli qartuli simgera, 1968); Euzkadi été 1982 (1982), about the French Basque Country and its inhabitants; Un petit monastère en Toscane (1988), on the daily life of a small community of French Augustinians in the monastery of Castelnuovo dell’Abate; and the monumental, nearly four-hour long Seule, Géorgie (1993) which traces 2,000 years of Georgia’s turbulent history through archival footage and film excerpts.

‘Movies Inspired’ contributed to the organisation of Otar Iosseliani retrospective with this insight provided by the BERGAMO Film Festival team

FILMS INCLUDED IN THE RETROSPECTIVE

Akvarel (USSR, 1958)
Sapovnela (USSR, 1959)
Aprili (USSR, 1961)
Ghisa/Tudzhi (USSR, 1964)
Falling Leaves /Giorgobistve (USSR, 1966)
Ancient Georgian Songs/Dzveli qartuli simgera (USSR, 1968)
Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird/Iko shashvi mgalobeli (USSR, 1971)
Pastorale/Pastorali (USSR, 1976)
Euzkadi été 1982 (France, 1982)
Sept pièces pour cinéma noir et blanc (France, 1982)
Favorites of the Moon/Les Favoris de la lune (France, 1984)
Un petit monastère en Toscane (France, 1988)
And Then There Was Light/Et la lumière fut (France, Germany, Italy, 1989)
Chasing Butterflies/La Chasse aux papillons (France, Italy, Germany, 1991)
Brigands, Chapter VII/Brigands, chapitre VII (France, Switzerland, Russia, Italy, 1995)
Farewell, Home Sweet Home/Adieu, plancher des vaches (France, Switzerland, Italy, 1998)
Monday Morning/Lundi matin (France, Italy, 2001)
Gardens in Autumn/Jardins en automne (France, 2005)
Chantrapas (France, Georgia, Ukraine, 2009)
Chant d’hiver (France, 2014)

OTAR IOSELLIANI RETROSPECTIVE | BERGAMO FILM MEETING

BERGAMO Film Meeting | 9-17 March 2024

Bergamo Film Meeting unveils its 42nd edition from March 9 – 17, 2024. One of the most important events in the Italian festival calendar the meeting draws thousands to its annual celebration of auteur and arthouse cinema in the mountainside venue just north of Milan in the Italian Dolomites.

Home to the Duomo di Bergamo, the city is also proud of its Romanesque Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore and the grand Cappella Colleoni, a chapel with 18th-century frescoes by Tiepolo.

Bergamasco is one of Italy’s most intriguing dialects and food-wise the town boasts a wealth of gourmet restaurants and bars where you can savour saffron-flavoured risottos and a legendary pancetta-laced pasta dish called casonelli alla bergamasca served in a rich butter sauce accompanied by the local wines – including the famous red Moscato di Scanzo. BERGAMO is also well known for its wealth of ice-cream parlours based on regional ingredients – including liguorice and zabaglione – with stracciatella a speciality.

Film-wise there’s a really exciting line-up that includes a retrospective on the work of French director and leading proponent of the Nouvelle Vague Eric Rohmer, including his seasons series: Conte de printemps, d’automne, d’hiver and d’ete, Le Rayon Vert; and Ma Nuit chez Maud to name but a few.

St Petersburg-born French actor, director and screenwriter Sacha Guitry (1885-1957) will receive a Tribute as one of the most fascinating and versatile film personalities of the 20th Century. The honour will include screenings of his 1935 director debut Bonne Chance!, Donne-moi tes yeux (1943) and La Poison (1953) amongst others.

A Tribute to Walter Matthau will highlight an American Comedy Classics strand featuring director Elaine May’s A New Leaf, Billy Wilder’s The Front Page. and Gene Saks’ 1966 outing The Odd Couple starring Matthau and Jack Lemmon.

There will also be a chance to see the latest arthouse films fresh from the festival circuit including a selection of world premieres in the Festival’s Main Competition. @MeredithTaylor

https://www.bergamofilmmeeting.it/en/

Power Alley | Levante (2023)

Dir: Lillah Halla | Brazil, Portugal, Spain | Sports Drama 92′

There’s plenty of energy and a queer vision behind this female-centric volleyball drama. Even the shower scenes fizz with a fast-moving tomboyish vibe and a thumping score from Brazilian band ‘Badsista’.

Playing in the Cannes Critics’ Week line-up, Brazilian director Lillah Halla’s colourful debut feature follows a teenage volleyball player who discovers she is pregnant in the run-up to an important championship match in a country where abortion is illegal.

The tone then turns more downbeat as 17 year old Sofia (Ayomi Domenica Dias) reflects on her options, not knowing who to turn to given the country’s termination ban. Blocked in her attempts to seek an illegal termination Sofia realises her career is now in question and she fears the worst when Gloria and Dr Elias confirm the pregnancy is well on the way.

There is a positive way forward for Sofia but it will involve telling her widowed father Joao (Rômulo Braga) who is equally invested in her future and proud of her achievements. He flies into a rage when he finds out the news, and is naturally opposed to Sofia’s wish to terminate. As the pregnancy develops the colour-scape becomes more vivid, shot through with a surreal neon aesthetic reflecting Sofia’s wildest fears.

Halla’s narrative never opts for the predictable instead there’s a complex set of circumstances in the mix as her central character’s dramatic arc develops with Sofia experiencing a sudden and unexpected transformation.

The story gradually unfolds to reflect that well-worn maxim: “life is what happens when you are making other plans”. Punchy and well-put-together Power Alley gets its message across in a drama that is both educational, tense and watchable. Lillah Hilla is certainly a talent in the making. MT

POWER ALLEY WON THE TOP PRIZE at BERGAMO FILM MEETING 2024

On Body and Soul (2017) Bergamo Film Meeting 2026

Dir: Ildikó Enyedi | Drama | Hungary 2017 | 116′ · Colour

Nearly two decades after My 20th Century (1989), Hungarian auteur Ildikó Enyedi’s returns with an arthouse curio whose compellingly clinical visual aesthetic contrasts bolding with its central theme: love in a Budapest abattoir.

On Body and Soul is the latest in a string of slaughterhouse-set films: Maud Alpi’s Gorge, Coeur Ventre (2016) and Hassen Ferhani’s 2015 documentary Roundabout in My Head which portrayed the human element in an Algerian abattoir. But Enyedi’s animals are somehow more appealing than their human counterparts, although the striking similarities between man and beast are poetically crafted in this slow-burner with its sleek performances and economical dialogue.

The film opens in a forest where a doe and deer are seen nuzzling on the snowy lakeside. We are frequently reminded of the scene as the story unfolds. Enyedi then cuts to the abattoir where cows are silently led to slaughter peacefully unaware of their fate and final moments which arrive with a clunk and a gush of blood on the tiled floor. Meanwhile, in the canteen it’s lunchtime for laconic finance director Endre (Géza Morcsányi) and he notices a newcomer to the queue in the shape of icy blond Maria (Alexandra Borbély), a quality control supervisor.

The young woman sits silently in the sterile surroundings. Hers is a world of figures and data, and she has no emotional memory, due to a difficult past and a continuing need to return to her childhood therapist. Her much older boss Endre is avoidant but a great deal more forgiving in his approach to human connection. Tentatively, like the woodland animals, they begin a frosty friendship and discover they have the similar dreams at night. A robbery in the slaughterhouse means that Endre has to call in the services of a sultry shrink Klara (Réka Tenki) who gives each member of staff the psychological once-over but what she discovers is shrouded in enigma.

In the privacy of her room Maria is a disengaged porn watcher. She acts out her innermost thoughts with plastic toys still seems dissociated from her feelings, judging by her glacially vacant expressions. Enyedi maintains the film’s tension and cold intimacy of tone with a tinkling occasional score where graphic blood and bone images of the slaughterhouse are counterposed with the hyperrealism of Maria’s antiseptic home-life seen in tactile moments involving food and furry toys, and magic realist sequences in the snowbound forest, courtesy of Mate Herbai’s pristine soft and shallow focus visuals.

This story of two people attempting to discover the realm of the senses, at first apart and then together, threatens with its cold-eyed voyeurism, but the central characters remain too enigmatic to make the film a satisfying experience despite its stringent humour, striking aesthetic and impressive performances from the ensemble cast.

Other films in this welcome retrospective from the Hungarian filmmaker include Silent Friend, My 20th Century The Story of My Wife and a selection of her short films. MT

ILDIKO ENYEDI RETROSPECTIVE | BERGAM 2026 | GOLDEN BEAR WINNER

A Woman Alone | Kobieta Samotna (1987)

Director: Agnieszka Holland Writers: Agnieszka Holland, Maciej Karpinski | Cast: Maria Chwalibog, Boguslaw Linda, Pawel Witczak, Danuta Balicka-Satanowska | 92min | Drama | Poland

The gruelling life of a single mother is the subject of Agnieszka Holland’s humanist but harrowing slice of ’80s social realism. Irena (Maria Chwalibóg|Mother Joan of the Angels) shares her bed and bathwater with her little son Bob (Pawel Witczak) in a small rented room in Wroclaw. The landlord regularly switches off their electricity supply, babies cry endlessly next door and her job as a postal worker is physically overwhelming. To make matters worse, she is forced to care for and support her sick and mean-fisted aunt who lives nearby. So much for communism.

Intimate in scale but far-reaching in its implications, this heartbreaking domestic drama touchingly depicts the close ties of family and the devoutness of religious feelings in a small community; but above all the hopeless desperation of a woman who has no joy, warmth or affection in a miserable existence where she feels neither respected nor valued. The stress of her meaningless life eventually leads her to the town hall where she makes an emotional appeal for better conditions and housing, but is sent packing by the authorities.

Agnieszka Holland shot this sharply critical feature on a hand-held camera shortly before making Angry Harvest. As a woman she is able to empathise with the female need to express feelings of alienation and loneliness in a world where outside emotional demands submerge her central character’s wellbeing. Holland ellicits a poignantly discrete performance from Maria Chwalibóg, who shows how the interest and support of a masculine presence allows her eventually to tolerate her situation and care for her dependents. This support comes in the shape of a disabled younger man, Jacek. Although she is not attracted physically to Jacek (an unglamorous but award-winning role played sensitively here by Boguslaw Linda), she befriends him, disarmed by his desperatation to show her love and just to be with her. The two develop a relationship of sorts that leads them to a brief moment of happiness until they realise tragically this is also a point of no return. MT

Agnieszka Holland Retrospective BERGAMO FILM MEETING 2026

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Bergamo Film Meeting 2025

Dir: Don Siegel | Wri: Daniel Mainwaring | Cast: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter | 90min Sci-Fi/Thriller US

Don Siegel’s sci-fi noir, based on Jack Finney’s novel, is one of the best screen metaphors for collective paranoia in fifties America, and possibly the most glamorous and well-dressed.

Shot in pristine black and white, it showcases the creeping undercurrents of fear that permeated the anti-McCarthy era from a melodramatic opening sequence right through to a stunning denouement. Further adaptations followed on, from Philip Kaufman (1978), Abel Ferrara (1993) and Hirschbiegel & McTeigue (2007) but none match the edgy exhilaration of Siegel’s elegant offering.

Dr Miles Bennell investigates alien duplicates that surface to replace their real-life owners in the starchy, middle-class town of Santa Mera, California. The aliens are almost attractive in their surreal perfection, making them seem eerie rather than horrific, and their mysterious arrival feels otherworldly and serene, giving Invasion an unnerving and strangely magical feel.

Well-paced and gripping, Siegel’s thriller also serves as a tender love story between Dr Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) and Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) who conform to the traditional macho male and submissive female roles consistent with the era.

An atmosphere of disorientation and fear pervades this cosy bourgeois corner of America as a gradual dehumanisation creeps into the ordered lives of a trusting close-knit community that gradually morphs into a climate of downright hostility and alienation.

The “pod people” look and act the same, but progressively lose their emotional engagement. Crime novelist, Daniel Mainwaring, cleverly scripts the piece to reflect these subtle mood changes from slight cognitive dissonance through to full blown paranoia. Carmen Dragon’s moody score primps moments of romance with shrill melodrama to fabulous effect.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS not only reflects the socio-political zeitgeist of the era, it’s a story that feels evermore timely in America today : When Dr Miles Bennell pleads with the police he could so easily be speaking to audiences here and now. @MeredithTaylor.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) BERGAMO FILM MEETING 2025

Archive for the ‘Bergamo Film Festival’ Category