"Anything can happen, anything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist; on a minimum basis of reality, the imagination draws new motifs: a mixture of memories, experiences, inventions, absurdities and improvisations. The characters split, double, split, vanish, take consistency, dissolve and recompose. A conscience, however, dominates everything, that of the dreamer: for it there are no secrets, inconsistencies, scruples, laws. He does not condemn, he does not absolve; he reports".
(A. Strindberg -1901)
OFF presents itself in its second edition offering the participants a wide, multifaceted and fascinating theme: the world of the oneiric.
Since ancient times, everything related to dreams has been the subject of research and interpretation.
The dream is divinatory, prophetic, bearer of archaic symbols and generator of new dimensions.
It is precisely on this last aspect that we wish to dwell, in order to provide more detailed ideas to participants who decide to present their works at OFF.
We like to observe the dream as a creative workshop where stories are generated, other worlds where - above all - the fears and darkest sides of ourselves and of the world in which we live blend with contexts of light, of open and proactive visions, in short, utopian.
Onirica Film Festival will carefully welcome and evaluate all the cinematographic works that will present dreamlike contents in different forms.
"While we sleep we do not bother to bend the outside world to our ends. We are helpless and therefore sleep has rightly been defined "brother of death"; but we are also freer from the burden of work, from the obligation to defend ourselves or to attack, to monitor and dominate reality. We must not look to the outside world, but to our inner world. In sleep, the realm of necessity is followed by the realm of freedom in which the "I am" is the only system to which thoughts and feelings refer. Experiences lived during sleep are not devoid of logic, but subject to different logical laws, fully valid in that particular psychological state".
(E. Fromm – 1962)
Depending on the theme chosen, a further inspiration to the dream world is the one deriving from the impressive work on dreams carried out by the famous Swiss psychoanalyst C. G. Jung. He made the dream one of his main themes of study throughout his life.
According to Jung, the dream is an opening to a transcendent, wider reality in which the individual can immerse himself and draw insights from his profound unconscious wisdom. Therefore, in this sense, the dream becomes a phenomenon of extra-human experience that, as such, goes beyond any imposed limit, social conventions, personal and relational: while you dream you are free to be.
And this is precisely what we encourage to express through OFF: to show the most varied nuances of oneself, of one's own reality.
Therefore, the participants are called to dream big, immersing themselves in the boundless land of Utopia: the non-place par excellence and therefore everything to be built! Or, according to other interpretations, Utopia understood as the perfect kingdom of happiness.
In harmony with the dreamlike theme, the theme of Art and Nature is well connected.
As far as the artistic field is concerned, the dream was taken as a leit motif by the surrealism that tried to express - through painting - the most disparate impossible realities. Think of the well-known paintings of Salvador Dalì, one of the main exponents of Surrealism. The unconscious expressions that are manifested thanks to and through the dream become works of art around which you can compare. Moreover, this type of pictorial expressiveness acts as a driving force to generate criticism of the social reality of the time and to identify alternative ways of thinking also in relation to important community issues (divergent thought and dream ).
As far as Nature is concerned, remembering the great attention paid today to environmental issues, it is transformed into a powerful means of perception of human feeling of spaces, colors, sensations, emotions that unfold when you immerse yourself in contexts characterized by a powerful wild naturalness (we invite you to observe Impression at the rising of the sun by Monet).
Moreover, Nature - through its phenomena - becomes a dense and significant metaphor of the human essence: restless and in continuous evolution and change.
On the basis of what has been said so far, it becomes spontaneous to draw a thread that connects Dream, Art, Nature and Human Being.
Good work!!
"[The dream] as an infinite shadow of the True." (G. Pasoli - 1904)
Guest of honor and godmother of the evening will be the professional actress Ekaterina Buscemi
Onirica Film Festival il also available as app for mobile on Apple Store and Google Play.
Onirica Award
Best Experimental film Award
Best Animation Award
Best Cinematography Award
Best Photography Award
Best leading actor
Best costumes award
Emerging Talent Award
Screenplay Award