The Festival of the land !

StranoFilmFestival is an international film festival with the theme of "the land" which has been held since 2017 in Capestrano, Valle del Tirino (AQ). The Festival is renewed and from 2022 will be held every two years. The Festival stays open to all cultural expressions while always remaining faithful to the link with the territory and its inhabitants. Strano builds bridges between places and people far away in space and time, imagining possible future worlds. We investigate experimental and unique practices for: agriculture, environment and migration. Strano Film Festival aims to stimulate creative and unconventional ways of experiencing the land while intertwining tradition and innovation. 

The 2024 edition of the Strano Film Festival, entitled "Madre Terre", has just ended, celebrating the generative, powerful and generous earth, venerated by humanity since prehistoric times with a female representation: Mother Earth.

“Mother is anyone who generates and takes care of what has been created”

This year's theme was based on a deep and rooted historical awareness in the territory: The millenary bond between homo sapiens and the Earth has given rise to cults linked to agriculture linked to a primordial female divinity, capable of generating every cycle of life. In Abruzzo there have been numerous findings of this cult in places such as Roccacasale and Popoli similar to the famous statue of the Mother Goddess found in Willendorf, Austria, dating back to about 25,000 years ago, and which bear witness to the millenary history of our territory. Adriana Gandolfi, an anthropologist and researcher who collaborated in the creation of the Museo Delle Gentid of Abruzzo in Pescara, told us about it.

THE FILMS

The films of the three screening nights explored the theme of Mother Earth in surprising and different ways. From family intimacy as in the special mention film “Quello che non posso fare” by Ilaria Scarcella, from the mythology of Demeter in Brazil in the other special mention film “Ash Wednsday” by the Brazilian Joao Pedro Pardo or the challenge to the oppressive socio-political conditions of the Iranian film by Mahta Hosseini who won the Festival with “Superhero”. The winner is a very young Iranian director who arrived in Capestrano with a film inspired by a very touching personal story that tells of a law in Iran that leads to all children of married parents being automatically entrusted to the father. Made with essential shots and focused on the world of the child, it won over the festival audience.

VIRTUAL REALITY

This year, the festival presented two extraordinary experiences in Virtual Reality that immersed the viewer in the center of the Earth. With “The center of everything” by Nicolas Jollet Richard Decaillet and Diana Rico and “Conscious Existence"” by Marc Zimmermann, the Church of Santa Maria di Loreto and the Parco delle Sorgenti have become portals to a different world and time, bringing us closer to the spirit of the Earth. The projection "Il coro degli alberi" by Barbara Bernardi on the walls of the church invited us to reflect on the essential relationship between human beings and trees, both an integral part of nature.

“Recognizing the key role of women in promoting rural and agricultural development, will contribute to food security and the elimination of rural poverty”.

United Nations General Assembly, 2007. In the Tirino Valley, many rural entrepreneurs are women. We are pleased that they will share their wisdom with us as they lead many of this year’s proposed activities.

The festival take place in Capestrano (AQ), a medieval hilltop Italian town.