BRIDGE FILM FESTIVAL

Bridge Film Festival is a five day festival taking place each July in three wonderful locations by the river in Verona, Italy. It is focused on cinema, including long, medium and short films, documentaries, experimental works, animation, etc.

Each year, we choose a theme which works as fil rouge in selecting films and developing them through the program. The program is composed of several sections: "Long film", "Short film", "Coming of Age", "Experimenta", "Tomorrow's Journey", "Baby Cocai". There is also the possibility of being part of Bridge Film Festival in the section out of competition "BFF Off". We look both for internationally renowned and emerging local or foreign directors' works.

The 13th edition of the Bridge Film Festival explores the theme of appearance with the title "Skincare. I want a wonderful skin", quoting a song by the Italian band Afterhours. Taken as a provocative image, the concept of skin today actually conveys many very profound meanings and considerations about human nature, about what we want to show or hide on ourselves.

Skin is the place where our modern societies (from Latin America to Far East, passing through the United States and the Middle East) deny the passing of time, trying to escape aging. Moreover, it is the place where we see the results of pressure about beauty standards. Cosmetic surgery, Liquify Tool on Photoshop, filters on mobile phones: all means to look younger, more beautiful, more attractive, in a way to be desirable to other people - or at least we think it will be this way. It is a way to hide our real selves, especially when is aging.

Similarly, skin is the world of appereances when carrying prejudice. Racism begins looking at a different skin, at a sign of diversity, of our origin, of our story, of our untiring individuality. Briefly: a sign of our identity. Skin makes us similar, but sometimes also very different; makes us close, but also very distant. Looking at the other with open eyes, without bias is one of the challenges of our times: it is an issue far from being overcome.

Skin is a way to enter in contact with the world hiding who we are, being vehicles of prejudices, but also showing who we are. Skin can be a way to express ourselves in a constant looking fro who we are. An example can be gender transition: skin becomes a place of transformations, conversions, tests and examinations about who we are and changing gender is only the extreme point of the natural effort to find our real selves and express it.

In conclusion, skin talks about who we are, who we want to be, who we don't want to be, and also the continuous alternance bewteen what we want to show about ourselves and what we want to hide. "Skincare" is a way to talk about pressures of society, prejudices in our culture, the free expression of identities, the constant game of showing and hiding our emotion to others in an endless exploration of who we are.