Who is Luca Raffaelli? From the incredible surprise made by Paul McCartney to the future of animation; a small talk with the new artistic director of Sardinia Film Festival.
Who is Luca Raffaelli?
Writer, author, and journalist, he brilliantly works for «Lanciostory» and the Italian newspaper «la Repubblica», and he also was deputy director of <<Salone di Lucca>>.
He directed the animated short “Due Punti” (Two Dots), which competed in many international festivals. Luca also wrote the song “Ninna pa’ ” for the Italian singer Mina. However, he’s mostly known to be one of the most important Italian experts in comics and animation.
Luca’s mission is to promote this drawn world, which is very sensitive but often mistreated.
<< With the same effort made by Don Quixote in his errands, my primary task of this dedication is to read a lot of them, defend them, and explain them to the ones who think they are not interesting. Always considered a rank B art, for me, it’s actually the absolute magnificence.
Behind it, there’s the depths of life>>
In this way he has written the prefaces of more than six thousand comics for <<La Repubblica – L’espresso>>. Moreover, he published for Tunuè “Le anime disegnate”, a book able to satisfy all the curiosity about cartoons – from Disney to Bojack Horseman, going through anime to arrive at The Simpsons. A new edition is now out in France.
But that’s not all, in fact, after leading for three years the Festival Cartoombria and make it more famous, for several years he was artistic director of Romics, a festival dedicated to comics held in Rome. Luca Raffaelli is also the creator and has been the leader of Castelli Animati, an international animation festival in Genzano.
A little, independent and original festival.
Born with a small budget, it has become the theater of world animation, a reference point and stage for many surprises and miracles. Like that time in 2000, when surprisingly Paul McCartney arrived in Genzano for the world premiere of his product “Shadow Cycle”, directed and designed by the maestro Oscar Grillo. Another example could be Isao Takahata’s emotional smile while talking about his Heidi.
For the lovers of Japan, anime, and manga, during the last year, Luca has published his first graphic novel “Ciao mamma vado in Giappone“, drawn by Enrico Pierpaoli.
And after the essay “Che cos’è un fumetto”, written with Valerio Bindi, in the first days of November his first novel, “Lo spazio dentro”, will be released for Mincione Edizioni.
According to Luca, in the future of cartoons, there will be more space for authorial animation, and the Sardinia Film Festival is the most interesting event and the ideal place to look around, confront different works and get inspired.
Not only watching neve-seen shorts and many other wonders, but also learning how the animation business works, and in particular how to change it through new projects.
A good anecdote from Luca is that of director Jan Pinkava (formerly Pixar; Il Gioco di Geri; Ratatouille) who thanks him at the end of the festival because in that energy he had found the desire to start creating again.
This is the atmosphere you will find this year at the Sardinia Film Festival, with the screenings, meetings, and workshops that will fill the calendar, signed by Luca Raffaelli.
A world of shorts and ideas.
We are waiting for you, from 3rd to 8th December 2021, at Sassari Cityplex.
in the photo: Luca Raffaelli