The power of imagination—its generative force that shapes visions, creates worlds, transforms reality and, above all, calls it into question: “Imago” is the guiding theme of the 42nd edition of Asolo Art Film Festival, the world’s oldest festival dedicated to the relationship between cinema and the visual arts, taking place from 12 to 14 June at the Teatro Duse in Asolo.

Founded in 1973 thanks to the vision of critic and essayist Flavia Paulon, and now directed by filmmaker Nello Correale, the festival has long been a point of reference for art cinema, hosting an international selection of art films, experimental works, and video art. This year, the programme will explore Imago not so much as a representation of reality, but as a form that carries memory, interpretation, and construction.

The works presented at the festival will move through symbolic and inner territories, questioning the relationship between vision and matter, between perception and transformation.

“Starting again from Imago means restoring value to our gaze—slowing it down, making it more aware,” explains Artistic Director Nello Correale. “Imago speaks to the present because it reflects its contradictions. It doesn’t offer easy answers; it opens questions. It asks us to distinguish between seeing and looking, between accumulating images and truly understanding them.”

“Imago is a real poetic device,” adds Competition Director Piero Deggiovanni, “a threshold through which artists and audiences are invited to engage with images that act, that shift, and that reveal invisible dimensions of reality. The selected works dialogue with ancient traditions and contemporary practices, weaving together audiovisual languages, rituality, philosophy and aesthetic research.”

In this sense, Asolo Art Film Festival is not only a showcase for cinema and the visual arts, but also an experience of the gaze—an experience that, during the festival days, will be enriched by meetings with artists and authors, talks, and in-depth moments dedicated to the relationship between imagination, symbol and transformation.

“Because in a fast and complex time like ours,” the organisers conclude, “stopping to look can become an important act. Ultimately, the way we see the world is also the way we choose—or choose not—to change it.”

Chiara Pavan