‘Desert Nights: Tales from the Desert’ international film festival

Dear Friends,
My name is Irene Bignardi and I am the Artistic Director of ‘Desert Nights: Tales from the Desert’, an international film festival, sponsored by the UN Agency UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification), under the patronage of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage that will take place in Rome, Italy, from December 1 to December 7 2006, to celebrate the end of the Year to Combat Desertification and Drought.
DESERT NIGHTS: TALES FROM THE DESERT aims at informing audiences of the extraordinary beauty of the desert, as well as the culture and life of the people who dwell in it. The festival will present also films and documentaries portraying feature stories of the people and communities in the countries affected by desertification and, of course, the daily struggle against drought, hunger and unemployment of many who live in these areas.
DESERT NIGHTS: TALES FROM THE DESERT has been conceived not as a film competition, but rather as a window on the world of the desert with a week of screening, divided in 3 sections: feature films, documentaries and short films, a retrospective.
A limited number of previously distributed films, as well as short films and documentaries may also be shown.
The feature films section will mainly present films coming from countries affected by desertification. As for the eligibility criteria for this section: submitted films must be produced after January 2004, must be longer than 58 minutes and must not have been released commercially or presented at other film festivals held in Italy prior to Desert Nights.
Any exception to these rules would be taken into consideration and decided solely by the director of the festival and the Expert Committee in case of particularly outstanding films.
The documentaries, video and short films section is conceived as a window on the world of the desert lands and their inhabitants.
All works completed after January 2004 are eligible for this section.
As such our team is now in the process of selecting any feature film or documentary that would satisfy the above mentioned requirements.
From the documentation we read, among the films you have produced or distributed in the last years, probably there could be any that fall into this category and we are very interested in a view or screening for possible selection in our festival.
Provided you are interested, to send us a copy (even a working copy is fine) in DVD or VHS format to the following address for our viewing, as soon as possible for you:
‘Desert Nights: Tales from the Desert’ International Film Festival
Via dei Chiavari 8. 00186, Rome. Italy
If, later, your film or documentary is selected for screening during the festival week,
we would then ask you to provide us with our duly completed official entry-form.

Please, have a look at our official website, which is: www.desertnightsfestival.org

Alternatively you can also contact Michele Melega, email: michele.melega@desertnightsfestival.org
or Rosalba Ruggeri, email rosalba.ruggeri@desertnightsfestival.org, who are responsible for the films and documentaries section.

Best Regards
Irene Bignardi,
Artistic Director of ‘Desert Nights: Tales from the Desert’
Ph: +39 066869133; Fax: +39 066869547