Editor

©Gianni Berengo Gardin/Contrasto 

Filippo Ticozzi (director), Diana Cardani (head of the animated film and Kino Club Bergamo Film Meeting sections), Donatella Palermo (film producer), Andrea Zambelli (director, screenwriter and photography director) and Erika Ponti (film producer) have been appointed as the jury of the fourth edition of the Ermanno Olmi Award, established to promote short films by young directors.

Promoted by the City of Bergamo, the award is open to filmmakers under the age of 30 and consists of 3 cash prizes (€1,200, €500, and €300) - made available by Bergamo Film Meeting Onlus - and a special mention awarded to the most significant entry related or inspired by a theme indicated by the municipal administration. This year, the Department of Culture has chosen The Religion of Small Things as its theme. Ermanno Olmi's cinema reflects his search for a less transcendent and more immanent spirituality, accomplished in the relationships between people and nature. The poetry of his films finds expression in the sincerity of the faces and the authenticity of the gestures portrayed; in the representation of the wholesomeness found in rural life, work, and everyday gestures. Ermanno Olmi's message resonates with everyone because, although religious in its essence, it is devoid of dogmas, prioritising the will to strive for good and to rediscover joy in simple everyday things.
The deadline for submissions (fiction, documentary or animation produced in 2021 and 2022), which must not exceed 15 minutes in length, is October 16, 2022. (Info and registration: www.premioolmi.it)

The winners' announcement and award ceremony will be held on Tuesday, December 6, 2022, at the Auditorium in Piazza della Libertà, Bergamo (or another suitable venue). Should there still be, on the appointed date, containment measures due to the Covid-19 emergency, the award ceremony and the screening of the finalist films will be broadcast online on a dedicated streaming platform.

In the words of Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Bergamo, Nadia Ghisalberti: «The Ermanno Olmi Award Prize has reached its 4th edition and continues to enjoy full support from this administration, not only as a way to honour the greatness of the late Bergamo-born director, but also to help support young directors and filmmakers. It is indeed the creativity and ideas of the young that are the driving force of a society's cultural growth, along with their unique and essential perspective on contemporaneity. An authentic perspective which, in these challenging times, helps recover and promote new, profound meanings. For this reason, the special mention of this edition awards works reflecting on the theme of the "religion of small things", a motif that permeates the works of Ermanno Olmi and his testimonies of a spiritual research that has little to do with dogmas and it's carried out, instead, in human relationships, in the relationship with nature and in the ability to grasp the poetry of everyday life».

The Ermanno Olmi Prize is promoted by the City of Bergamo with the support of Lab 80 film and in collaboration with Bergamo Film Meeting Onlus.

In accord with the Minimum Environmental Criteria - parameters of environmental sustainability for cultural events - signed by the Municipality of Bergamo, the Prize takes part in the European Green Fest project: a commitment to both environment and culture, and a fitting tribute to Ermanno Olmi, who, through his works, was always a keen supporter of environmental preservation.