From 22 to 26 November Milan welcomes MDFF, Milano Design Film Festival: five days of programming for the world of design and its multiple directions. Because, as Cristiana Perrella, curator of MDFF, explains, “the intention of this edition is to bring continuity to the characteristics that have made the festival an established reality, opening the event to new possibilities and setting the main objective of contact with different audiences and spheres.”
Completely in physical presence, the festival – calling for one-day tickets of 5 euros – offers almost 50 titles in various locations in the city. The kickoff is on 22 November at the Triennale, with an opening event (by invitation), and the screening of the film produced by Sky Arte, Sinceramente, Gae, an unusual portrait of the architect and designer Gae Aulenti, commemorated ten years after her death (the film looks forward to the retrospective organized at the Triennale for the spring of 2024).
“From the focus on sustainable materials to the recognition of the practice of women designers observed from a film standpoint – besides Gae Aulenti, other less well-known but interesting figures emerge, like the architect Maria Giuseppina Grasso Canizzo or the Danish designer Grethe Meyer – the common denominator of the projects is disciplinary overlap, capable of describing design as a living discipline that has a close impact on various aspects of our lives. Boundaries are not walls, but opportunities for contamination,” Perrella says.
In the development of the program, Cristiana Perrella has relied on three exceptional guest curators: the philosopher Emanuele Coccia, who offers his reflections on the role of apparel in life, the architect and researcher Bianca Felicori, examining inflatable and impermanent architecture, and the designer India Madhavi, who brings a very personal theme to the screen, a work about her roots titled Iranità.
The program is organized with two days at Anteo Palazzo del Cinema (23 and 25 November), hosting a part of the MDFF films in two theaters, while on 24 November there will be screenings at Fondazione dell’Ordine degli Architetti PPC della Provincia di Milano and at the cinema Teatro Edi/Barrio’s (admission free at both locations).
The festival concludes on 26 November at Paderno Dugnano in the Tilane library and cultural center with Radici – A Tribute to Gae Aulenti, showing video materials curated by Nina Artioli, the granddaughter of the architect, in charge of Archivio Gae Aulenti. The final ceremony (by invitation) takes place at the ADI Design Museum, after the assignment of the Architecture Film Award and the MDFF Student Award.
