Screening of Processo politico at the Pesaro Film Festival

PROCESSO POLITICO 1971-2024

Saturday, 20 June 2026, 3:00 p.m.
Sala Grande, Cinema Sperimentale, Via Rossini 16, Pesaro.
Free entry

On the occasion of the 62nd edition of the Pesaro Film Festival, the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro and the Fondazione Homemovies are pleased to present a screening of Processo politico, an investigative and experimental film created through the collaboration between Francesco Leonetti and Arnaldo Pomodoro in 1971.

Produced in 1971 by the collective behind the magazine “Che fare” and directed by Francesco Leonetti and Arnaldo Pomodoro, the film examines the socio-political context of the years 1969–1970 in Italy, denouncing the death of the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli and recounting the defamation trial brought by Commissioner Luigi Calabresi against the weekly magazine “Lotta Continua”, which had accused him of the murder. By combining genres and different temporal perspectives, documentary and fiction, the film stands as a significant example of that “militant cinema” which, between the 1960s and 1970s, became an important tool of counter-information. Presented at the International Exhibition of New Cinema in Pesaro in 1971, Processo politico was judged excessively experimental and provoked harsh reactions from both audiences and critics. After being screened only a few times in the following months, the film eventually disappeared from circulation. In 1995, Leonetti and Carla Cerati rediscovered a working print and reconstructed a shortened version of the film.

Thanks to the restoration and digitization project carried out in 2024 by the Home Movies Foundation and promoted by the heirs of Francesco Leonetti together with the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation, after more than fifty years Processo politico returns to its original form, in the version considered definitive by the authors in 1971.

The film screening of the newly restored 16mm print of the film will be introduced by the project coordinators through historical photographs and other archival documents documenting its production and its reception by audiences and critics.

With contributions from Federico Giani (Curator, Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro), Jennifer Malvezzi (Curator of the “Art & Experimental Film” project, Fondazione Home Movies), and Mirco Santi (Fondazione Home Movies, Head of the Restoration and Digitization Laboratory). Moderated by Cecilia Ermini.