Milan Design Film Festival at ACMI

Proudly supported by the Italian Cultural Institute, Melbourne, this year's inaugural edition of the Milan Design Film Festival at ACMI will present a curated selection of titles from the 9th (2021) edition of the Milano Design Film Festival, alongside films drawn from recent editions of the Festival.

This year's ACMI-curated MDFF program comprises an eclectic range of documentaries and shorts exploring trends, masters, innovators, historical and contemporary currents. The films featured are devoted to subject matter ranging across Architecture and Design, but also culture and society more broadly – including Italy's unique club culture in Disco Ruin – the environment, sustainability, and beyond, with titles also drawn from ‘Food’ and ‘Bloom’ sidebars featured in recent editions of the Milano Design Film Festival, which has been an annual fixture on Milan's cultural calendar since 2013.

Some of the highlights in this year's inaugural edition of the MDFF at ACMI include Carlos Saura's feature length documentary, Renzo Piano: Architect of Light, and the Australian premiere of two wide-ranging feature documentaries on Italian innovator, Olivetti (Paradigm and Perspective). Opening night film, The Importance of being an Architect, which also opened the 2021 festival in Milan last October, focuses on Milan-based Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel, partners and co-founders of renowned architecture and interior design practice, ACPV, who appear on screen alongside a host of practitioners and collaborators from across the globe.

– Roberta Ciabarra; Curator, Film

I am proud to present in Melbourne, in collaboration with ACMI, the Milano Design Film Festival (MDFF), one of the most important and original festivals in the field of design and architecture. Curated by Silvia Robertazzi and Porzia Bergamasco, the Milano Design Film Festival seeks to present a survey of the culture of design.

The 20 films selected by ACMI to screen in this first edition of the Milan Design Film Festival in Melbourne, mostly from the 2021 edition of the festival, offer a broad vision of what is happening in the sector today. Design in the world speaks Italian: of the sector's 100-billion-dollar turnover, one third – about 32 billion – is made in Italy. With this, and other events specially designed for Victoria, the Italian Cultural Institute in Melbourne promotes 'know-how' and adds 'making known'.

Contemporary architecture, in its cultural and social dimensions, responds to the challenges of our time with a careful approach to the definition of public space. In Italy the theme of the initiative was 'Reset', a restart after the COVID-19 pandemic, intended as a reimagining of lifestyles and urban landscapes, with less focus on history and biographies and more attention on urban planning and sustainability.

I hope this is just the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with ACMI hosting the MDFF on a regular basis to create positive synergies between Italy and Australia in this cultural field.  

Finally, I’d like to thank Silvia Robertazzi, director of the MDFF, for her support and collaboration.

– Angelo Gioè; Director, Italian Cultural Institute, Melbourne