For this reason, for the past twenty-four years the Italian Film Festival is held there. A festival born of the wish of the town’s dwellers, from the wish to find on the big screen the affective and cultural link with Italy.

The Jury’s prize for the 2001 edition went to the Turin-born director Daniele Gaglianone wiht the film “I nostri anni”. The audience’s prize went to “Ribelli per caso” by Vincenzo Terracciano and that of the French press to “Le fate ignoranti” by Ferzan Ozpetek. Finally the prize of the city of Villerupt was given to Michele Placido, to whom the festival dedicated a retrospective. Some of the films shown between the 26th October and the 11th November were: “La stanza del figlio” by Nanni Moretti (an Oscar candidate), “I cento passi di Marco Tullio Giordana”, “Nobel” by Fabio Carpi, “Le parole di mio padre” by Francesca Comencini, “Alla rivoluzione sulla due cavalli” by Maurizio Sciarra, “Non è giusto” by Antonietta de Lillo and “Domani” by Francesca Archibugi.

A peculiarity of this festival is that it is held without so much advertising, chit chat or sequin, remaining throughout the years an exclusive appointment just for the citizens of Villerupt. But in those two weeks, an opportunity for leisure and vitality, the only cinema in town is not enough to welcome the public attending, so an inflatable cinema is organised with a fun-fair depicted on the facade, transported on wheels with a trailer.

Tickets, then, have a alternative formulas. There is the one, for example, that enables you to watch two films and a plate of pasta which is served in the common hall of di Audun-Le-Tiche where the town’s women cook lasagne and tagliatelle.

December.2001