Ruviano International Film Festival

An international festival in a village of few souls

The Ruviano International Film Festival, also known by the acronym RIFF, is the film event that transforms the municipality of Ruviano, in the Alto Casertano, into a small capital of independent cinema every year. Promoted by the BOZ - Produzioni Artistiche APS association, the festival was born in 2025 with a simple and ambitious idea: to give visibility to emerging talents—directors, actors, cinematographers, screenwriters—by bringing them not to a big city, but to a village in the province of Caserta, in Campania, where the screening room is the town square and the foyer is the network of alleys in the historic center.

The choice of Ruviano is no coincidence. The village already has a cinematic history: scenes from La bella mugnaia (1955), starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, were filmed here. The RIFF picks up that thread and puts it back into circulation, also involving the hamlet of Alvignanello and iconic local landmarks, from the Civic Tower to the Tenuta Petra.

A competition open to the world

The heart of the event is the international competition, with entries collected through the FilmFreeway platform and works arriving from various countries, screened with Italian subtitles. The competing categories cover a wide range of independent production:

• Short films and medium-length films with an open theme;
• Shorts and medium-length films on the theme of social inclusion;
• Documentaries;
• Animated short films;
• Tourism promotional spots for the territory;
• From the 2026 edition, a section dedicated to works created with artificial intelligence.

In the second edition, nearly one hundred works were submitted, with about twenty selected for public screening: small numbers compared to major festivals, but significant for such a young event rooted in a rural context.

Not just screenings: training

What distinguishes the RIFF from many provincial festivals is the training component, which is entirely free. Each edition offers workshops and masterclasses led by industry professionals: cinematography, drone use in filming, acting for the camera, directing, and audiovisual production assisted by artificial intelligence. Alongside workshops for adults, a children's theater workshop involves local families, while local schools participate with their own delegations.

Cinema, music, and the territory

The evenings are held outdoors in Piazza Nuova and alternate between screenings, talk shows, and concerts. The format always includes a moment for public discussion—the Visioni dal Borgo lounge—with actors, directors, journalists, and university professors, and at least one musical appointment, ranging from choral concerts to ensembles reinterpreting the great soundtracks of Italian and international cinema.

The festival also dedicates space to discovering the landscape, with historical-naturalistic trekking and theatrical tours of the village that guide spectators through churches, courtyards, and panoramas of the Volturno valley, at the foot of the Matese mountains.

The awards

The closing ceremony assigns, in addition to the competition awards voted by the jury, several honorary awards: the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Memorial Award dedicated to the great names of Neapolitan cinema, and recognitions for Local Excellences and New Faces. The event enjoys the patronage of the Municipality of Ruviano, the Province of Caserta, and academic partners such as the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, the Federico II, and the Parthenope University of Naples.

Why it's worth visiting

The RIFF is a festival tailored to the spectator: free admission, limited seating, and minimal distance between the public and the guests. Those who arrive in Ruviano during the event days will find an illuminated village, tables laden with products from the Alto Casertano, and the concrete possibility of talking to those who make cinema. An opportunity to discover an off-the-beaten-path corner of inland Campania, far from the most crowded tourist routes.