After last June's preview, the countdown has now started for the first edition of the Ferrania Film Festival, to be held from September 11 to September 13, 2026 in Val Bormida.
The Ferrania Film Festival is born in the exact place where, over a century ago, one of the most important industrial stories tied to the production of photosensitive film began. It is not coincidental that “Film” in the Festival's name harks back to its original meaning: photographic film. A material that brought a revolution to photography, cinema, scientific research, communication, and the whole collective imagination of the 20th century.
The Festival is dedicated to film in every form: analog photography, analog cinema, amateur films, industry, archives, research, artistic experimentation and to all of those contemporary practices which keep using film as its chosen tool for expression, research and innovation. With one simple goal: to create an analog community, a place to bring together photographers, filmmakers, artists, researchers, archivists, companies, collectors, students, institutions and enthusiasts from Italy and beyond. A community which sees analog as a living, contemporary language in constant evolution, whose home is exactly Val Bormida, where over a century ago one of the most important film industries in Europe was born, a territory which today can get back its central and international importance for analog image culture.
The Ferrania Film Festival is the result of a network of expertise, relationships, and experience: the main organizer is Ferrania Film APS ETS , a non-profit organization, together with Felix Bielser of Punto Foto Group by Karl Bielser, in collaboration with some of the most influential national and international organizations dedicated to the preservation, production, and promotion of photographic film, including FILM Ferrania, the company that has brought back the production of photographic film to the historic industrial site in Ferrania, carrying on the legacy of a tradition that has made this region one of Europe’s leading centers for the production of photosensitive materials. Even today, FILM Ferrania remains one of the very few companies in the world engaged in the industrial production of analog film.
The preview, held on June 13, marked the first step on this journey, bringing together schools, residents, photographers, and cultural professionals for a day dedicated to exploring film and the industrial history of Val Bormida. The enthusiasm and participation on display confirmed the interest in a project that aims to restore this territory to its rightful place in the history of photography and cinema.
The Festival, taking place in September, will feature three days of events , including exhibitions, screenings, author talks, workshops, tours, in-depth discussions, and initiatives dedicated to promoting Val Bormida's industrial and cultural heritage. The full program will be announced in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, registration opens today for the first workshop to be held as part of the Ferrania Film Festival. This two-day workshop, organized by the WARSHADFILM collective (Tiziano Doria and Samira Guadagnuolo), will give participants the opportunity to try their hand at creating a collaborative micro-short film using a Bolex 16mm camera. During the workshop, after a theoretical introduction, participants will move on to hands-on filming, developing the negative, and printing on orthochromatic film; at the end of the two days, the results will be screened. More information for participants can be found on the Festival’s official website, where you can also register. This is just the first of a series of specialized workshops that will be held during the Festival; the rest will be announced in the coming weeks.
The 2026 edition of the Ferrania Film Festival is particularly significant as it joins the international celebrations for the 200th anniversary of photography . Between 1826 and 1827 Nicéphore Niépce created the first permanent photographic image in history, an invention that changed forever the way in which we observe, document and narrate the world. To celebrate this anniversary, the Festival will dedicate a large part of its program to analog photography, to its origins, evolution, and to the latest forms of experimentation, contributing to the international events marking the Bicentennial of Photography.
This edition will also have a Europe-wide dimension as the Ferrania Film Festival is a part of the program of the New European Bauhausfestival, an initiative by the European Commission bringing together cultural projects able to blend together sustainability, beauty and inclusion, in order to develop and promote local heritage through new forms of participation and innovation. During 2026 the Ferrania Film Festival will contribute to this international program by organizing events dedicated to analog film culture, industrial heritage, analog photography and to the dialogue between cultural heritage, communities and regional development, sharing the New European Bauhaus's values and strengthening the European dimension of our project.
The Ferrania Film Festival looks to the future , with the ambition of becoming an annual event and a permanent platform for international dialogue on film culture, capable of forging connections between industrial heritage, cultural production, research, tourism, and regional developmentMore than just a festival, it aims to be the starting point for bringing Val Bormida back to the center of the global landscape of analog culture.
— Lidia Giusto, storica dell’arte, fotografa, archivista, presidente dell’Associazione Ferrania Film e direttrice artistica del Ferrania Film Festival
