History
Founded in 1959 by a group of scholars in the humanities, anthropology, sociology, ethnology and mass-media studies, the Festival dei Popoli Institute, a not-for-profit organization, has been active for sixty years in the promotion and study of social documentary cinema.
The activities of the association consist primarily in organizing, in Florence, the main international documentary film festival in Italy. From 2008 to 2010, an edition was also held in New York (NYDFF - New York Documentary Fim Festival). The Institute also has to its credit a vast network of collaborations for the dissemination of documentary culture in Italy and abroad. In parallel, the Festival dei Popoli carries on the activity of preserving its archive (which has over 25,000 titles, including videos and films) and is active in the field of training, organizing courses and workshops aimed at filmmakers and aspiring documentary filmmakers.
Over the years, the Festival dei Popoli has dedicated retrospectives and tributes to such great masters of cinema as Jean Renoir, Jean-Luc Godard, John Cassavetes, Ken Loach, Nagisa Oshima, Lindsay Anderson, Aleksandr Sokurov, Jørgen Leth, Raymond Depardon, André Sauvage, Vincent Dieutre, and Sergei Loznitsa.
Since 2008, the “Filmmaker in Focus” section has presented at each new edition a solo show dedicated to a director who has distinguished himself in the field of documentary filmmaking for the richness of his expressive language. The retrospective constitutes a valuable opportunity to deepen the knowledge of an author, of the background of his experiences, professional and human, putting the public in contact with works that are little known or difficult to find.
Filmmakers in focus from past editions include: Claire Simon, Thomas Heise, Peter Mettler, Isaki Lacuesta, Andrés Di Tella, Marcel Łoziński and Paweł Łoziński, Jos de Putter, Mary Jimenez, Danielle Arbid, Kazuhiro Soda, Roberto Minervini.
In 2009, to mark its 50th anniversary, the Festival of Peoples presented the retrospective “The Feeling of Being There. 1958-1965: Seven Years of Documentary Cinema,” a selection of 24 short films that marked the history of documentary cinema in a period of great creative fervor that corresponds to the birth of the Festival dei Popoli.
Beginning with the 2014 edition, the Festival dei Popoli has developed a multi-year project aimed at giving prominence to the multiple crafts essential in the making of a film, often the result of unparalleled craftsmanship. In the section “The Crafts of Cinema,” some of the most accredited professionals of international renown have been invited to learn about the crafts of cinema, with particular attention to the specifics of documentary film. They include: Dominique Auvray for editing, Wojciech Staroń for photography, Sergio Oksman for writing.
Through its thematic sections, the Festival of Peoples has dealt from time to time with architecture and the evolution of the urban landscape, issues related to immigration, new cults, and the relationship between images and power. Among the most recent: “Ali in the City - Drifts and Landings of Contemporary Migrants,” “Looking for Neverland,” “Domino Effect - Dreams and Nightmares of Contemporary Power,” and “Habitat.”
In 2019, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary, the retrospective “Diamonds are Forever ‘ offered a selection of 20 ’great moments of cinema” - made over the past sixty years by internationally renowned authors and brought together in a priceless necklace.
Starting from 2013, the festival has been enriched with a new space, Doc at Work, that includes a co-production market dedicated to documentary projects, meetings, workshops, debates with the authors and with the festival guests, books and DVD presentations. Doc at Work’s program has the goal to foster the reflection on documentary cinema as an artistic language of the contemporary world. The event is a space for shaping new ideas and film projects, and to help to build and finance the cinema of the future.
From 2017 Doc at Work focuses on films produced by students of film schools, in the belief that their activity is of strategic importance for the entire audiovisual sector. Considering the schools of cinema the outposts from which to observe the work of young talents and “gyms” in which the new generations of filmmakers train and experiment, “Doc at Work – Campus” wants to give space to and support the activities of most representative Italian and foreign film schools with the aim of introducing the young authors to the public, the press and to professionals.
