AV News Magazine | Seite 24

AV News 193 - August 2013

1st Concorso Internazionale AV "Citta di Corsa"
Ron Davies FRPS
The first Italian International festival was held at the beginning of June in
Garda, Italy. Lorenzo de Francesco, the FIAP Director of AV Services was
responsible for its organisation. In the festival information pack were details
of an excellent half board deal that Lorenzo had made with the 5 star Poiano
Hotel, a few kms from Garda, overlooking the lake.
The last time I'd stayed in the hotel was a few years ago with Peter Coles
when we'd been invited by Lorenzo to show our work at 4 separate venues
around Lake Garda. The last show was to be in the open air in the main square
in Garda. A huge screen had been draped on the wall of the Town Hall and
our Royale projector was set up ready for the show. This was to be after a
thanksgiving feast provided by the fishermen of Garda. About 400 people,
including Peter and me, sat down to a magnificent meal with copious amounts
of wine. Just as the meal was finishing and introductory speeches made, a
tremendous thunderstorm swept in and that was the end of our tour. So, the
Garda International seemed to be a very good opportunity to support Lorenzo
and visit the Poiano again. Another incentive was that any author attending
the festival had their entry fees refunded. Epinal are also doing this for their
forthcoming festival in September. With tongue in cheek should we suggest
this to the RPS?
So, the only three AV'ers from Lytham PS, Julie England, Keith Storey and
I, flew to Venice, hired a car which Keith drove, very carefully, to Garda. There
we met up with Maggie and Malcolm Imhoff who arrived just a few hours late
after having had a vehicle breakdown in Calais.
The festival, which was held in a local lake side hall, was very well organised
with each session being made up of 10 sequences. The morning sessions
started at 9am, then we had a 30 minute break before the second session
which started at 11am. The afternoon sessions started at 3pm, thus giving us
ample opportunity to have a relaxed lunch by the lake shore. The third
sessions started at 5pm, finishing at 6.30pm. This gave us ample time to return
to the hotel for an evening meal and back to the venue for the fourth session
starting at 9pm. After the last session on the Saturday night we were all invited
to a local café/restaurant for drinks and ice cream with the local president. 92
sequences had been entered, with no pre-selection. The three judges,
Lorenzo de Francesco, Christine Mathon, the Epinal organiser, and Fulvio
Merlak, the FIAF President, dec YY