Vicoli Corti - Peripheral Cinema

A festival that looks to the peripheries

Vicoli Corti - Peripheral Cinema is the film festival that has been enlivening the summer of Massafra for over twenty years, a town in the ravine area of the Taranto province, in the heart of the Ionian Puglia. Born in 2006 from the vision of the Il Serraglio APS association and guided by the artistic direction of Vincenzo Madaro, the festival has made the word "periphery" its compass: geographical periphery, that of small towns far from major circuits, but also social periphery, made of stories and perspectives that mainstream cinema often leaves on the margins.

Short films at the center

The heart of the event is the international short film competition, which selects dozens of works from all continents every year and puts them in dialogue with the Apulian audience. Alongside the competition, there is space for a section dedicated to first and second-time directors, retrospectives and tributes to the great masters of cinema, screenwriting and directing masterclasses, book presentations, and meetings with authors. The festival juries—technical, popular, and student—directly involve the spectators in judging the works.

Cinema as a tool for inclusion

Vicoli Corti is not just a film review: it is a cultural project that views cinema as a tool for inclusion and redemption. Over the years, the festival has hosted tributes to forgotten figures in cinema history, given voice to human rights issues in collaboration with Amnesty International, and brought the seventh art into schools with the Pricò - Cinema is Young project, dedicated to high school students.

Massafra and the Ionian territory

The festival is deeply linked to its city: for years, screenings have enlivened Piazza Santi Medici and the spaces of the historic center of Massafra, among the evocative ravines and the rock-hewn heritage that characterize the landscape of the province of Taranto. Supported by the Puglia Region and the Municipality of Massafra, Vicoli Corti has become a benchmark for emerging auteur cinema in Southern Italy over the years, capable of attracting directors, critics, and enthusiasts from all over Italy and abroad.

A summer of open-air cinema

With always free admission, the evenings of Vicoli Corti offer a rare formula: great international cinema under the stars, meetings with authors, and a community atmosphere that makes every edition a shared experience. A festival on the move, which continues to reinvent itself while remaining faithful to its vocation of giving space to those who make and live cinema far from the spotlight.