CIFF - Cittadella International Film Festival - Nasce il Premio Torre di Malta - Tower of Malta Award

**How long does it take to make a dream come true?**

For mine — or rather, for this shared dream — it took more than one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days.

Today, here in Cittadella, that dream finally takes shape in the *Tower of Malta Award*, the official prize of the *Cittadella International Film Festival*.

And it is no coincidence that all of this was born right here.

Cittadella holds an important historical connection to Italian cinema: this city hosted the filming of *Come quando fuori piove* by the great master Mario Monicelli, featuring extraordinary performers such as Claudia Pandolfi and Stefano Accorsi.

An artistic legacy that makes this place not only a setting of rare beauty, but also a space already deeply connected to cinematic storytelling and the memory of the Seventh Art.

Everything began in 2021, during the production of my first short film, shot right here among the alleyways of this city and along its walls.

Walking along the patrol path, looking down over the walled city from above, I suddenly had a vision: I imagined a long red carpet crossing the walls of Cittadella, transforming this historic place into an ideal bridge between past and future, between art and memory, between identity and international vision.

From that moment on, I understood that there could be no more fitting place for the birth of a film festival. Cittadella carries within its very identity the meaning of sharing, belonging, and community. Among Europe’s walled cities, it is one of the very few to possess a fully walkable patrol path: an extraordinary and unique heritage, a symbol of historical continuity and universal cultural embrace.

We chose Cittadella not only for its thousand-year history and the charm of its medieval village, but also for its strategic position in the heart of Veneto, a land of extraordinary entrepreneurship, culture, and innovation.

In a region that preserves magnificent walled cities such as Castelfranco Veneto, Montagnana, Soave, Monselice, and Noale, Cittadella perhaps represents the most complete synthesis of historical identity, accessibility, infrastructure, and organizational capability to host an international film festival.

It is not merely a walled city: it is a true “City of Art,” a place capable of transforming cultural heritage into a living, contemporary, and shared experience.

The deepest inspiration behind this award, however, comes from the *Tower of Malta*, a place that was originally a prison, even mentioned by Dante in the *Purgatorio*. From that very symbol of segregation, suffering, and isolation, I wanted to carry out a kind of epistemological inversion: transforming a place created to imprison into a symbol capable instead of elevating, liberating, and generating culture.

This award therefore represents redemption, hope, and rebirth.

It seeks to raise the gaze of those who receive it beyond the walls embracing Cittadella, like a Pascolian nest that protects and nurtures new talents. Because Cittadella is not merely a city: it is a place that welcomes, protects, and generates visions.

My background in cultural heritage conservation, combined with my path as a multi-instrumentalist, producer, designer, author, and director, has led me to experience art in all its forms. I have always been someone deeply involved in artistic creation and its expressive multidimensionality, convinced that every language — music, cinema, writing, imagery, cultural heritage — can dialogue with one another and generate new visions.

And it is precisely here that cinema reveals its deepest nature: being the Seventh Art, the supreme synthesis of all arts. Within cinema coexist image, music, language, architecture, theatre, literature, memory, and dream. It is a total language, capable of preserving the identity of a people while at the same time projecting it toward the future.

It is also from this multidisciplinary sensitivity that a perhaps audacious idea was born: elevating a cultural heritage site into an artistic award. Making heritage not only a memory of the past, but a living engine of the present and the future.

I chose Cittadella not only for the bucolic charm of its medieval village, but because I deeply believe that the true wealth of our territory is history.

Our art, our culture, our landscape, our food, the widespread beauty of our country: this is Italy’s true oil. We live in the most culturally biodiverse country in the world, and too often we forget the immense and immeasurable value of what we possess.

Years ago, a great entrepreneur from Veneto gave me a bracelet and told me: “Have faith and believe in Italy.”

Those words stayed with me. After leaving Italy in search of opportunities abroad, I chose to return. And through this festival, in my own small way, I am trying to restore dignity to a sector that is now profoundly fragile.

Cinema and the audiovisual world are going through an unprecedented crisis: precariousness, lack of protections, dispersion of resources, productions that too often fail to generate value for our territory, and now also the impact of artificial intelligence, which is radically redefining creative and human labor, stripping it of its sweat and soul.

For this reason, the *Cittadella International Film Festival* does not wish to be merely an artistic showcase.

It also wants to become a cutting-edge cultural, ethical, and professional institution capable of shaping the cinematic language of the future. A place that promotes meritocracy, legality, transparency, professional ethics, and genuine recognition of talent.

But above all, we want all of this not to be in vain.

Let us ensure that the effort in energy, economic investment, cultural growth, and national and international collaborations with schools, academies, and universities can generate something concrete and lasting. Let us ensure that the sacrifice of the volunteers, the staff, and all the people carrying this festival forward — despite enormous economic difficulties and the complete absence of funding received — is not wasted.

This festival exists thanks to the passion, resilience, and determination of those who chose to believe in it anyway, despite the endless doors slammed in their faces.

That is why today we ask you to continue supporting us.

Help us continue believing in this country.

Help us rebuild the future of this sector.

Make sure this generational cry does not go unheard.

I deeply thank everyone who believed in this vision and chose to support it, even when it seemed impossible, fragile, too ambitious, or too distant from reality.

Because every great change is always born from people considered mad.

Mad enough to see what does not yet exist.

Mad enough to sacrifice time, energy, money, sleep, and certainty for something they may not see fulfilled immediately, but hope will outlive them in greatness.

Are it the mad ones who change the world, or the mad ones who ultimately destroy it?

Assuming the world does not first extinguish, consume, or destroy them.

And yet it is precisely within that lucid, stubborn, visionary madness that every creative act is born, every cultural revolution, every gesture capable of leaving an indelible mark on history.

Because those who create art, those who defend culture, those who continue believing in beauty in times dominated by cynicism and indifference, perform an act of human resistance.

Today we live in a time that teaches us to fear failure, fear dreaming too greatly, fear being vulnerable, different, idealistic.

But without visionaries there would be no cinema, no music, no poetry, nor any of the works that have given meaning to our collective existence.

That is why I ask you never to lose that spark.

Remain restless.

Remain visionary.

Remain mad enough to still believe that culture can save something of the human being.

The essence of this award lies precisely in the ability to change perspective: to look beyond borders, beyond limits, beyond what appears possible.

The *Tower of Malta Award* is born above all for the younger generations.

It aspires to become a shared cultural heritage, with the same symbolic authority that awards such as the Premio Strega, the David di Donatello, or the Volpi Cup have earned over time.

Because rediscovering and defending one’s culture means defending one’s identity.

A people who lose the memory of their roots inevitably lose their identity.

What I ask today of politicians, entrepreneurs, supporters, artists, and young people is simple yet fundamental: make sure the light of this festival does not go out.

Ensure that the *Tower of Malta Award* may become an international symbol, passed down from generation to generation, capable of representing not merely an artistic recognition, but a true cultural elevation.

May this light continue to live year after year, edition after edition, until it becomes a point of reference for international cinema.

Before the final act arrives.

Before the curtain closes forever.

Before the end credits begin.

Because one day, when the lights dim and all that remains is what we have left to others, it will not matter how much noise we made, but how much light we managed to generate in the darkness.

Thank you.

CIFF – Cittadella International Film Festival**

**Tower of Malta Award – Premio Torre di Malta**

Founded and conceived by Jacopo Dotti

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