River Film Festival aims to ensure respect, welcome and inclusiveness for all participants of the events organized.
We believe in creativity and in diverging talent to deliver an experience of cultural and social growth for the community.
By participating in our event each viewer shares and respects our code of ethics and the values contained therein:
The spread of cinematography and image education
Attention to every form of visual and artistic expression
The promotion of independent cinema and short film
The collaboration with International Film Festivals
The enhancement of the territory and its historical values
Raising awareness of environmental issues
The consideration of culture as a means of social development and of overcoming the inequalities
Inclusiveness as a reference both in visual products and in the realization of events
The intergenerational debate
Consideration of student film products and first works
Exchange, respect and dialogue with the participants of the Festival and among the members of the team.
The promotion of events in presence, while respecting anticovid rules


History
The Cultural Association Researching Movie, founded in 2002 in Padua in the Portello area, has conceived and carried out since 2004 two international festivals : PORTELLO RIVER FESTIVAL and RIVER FILM FESTIVAL. The two initiatives are linked to the place that houses them: Piovego river’s water, the beautiful historical setting of Porta Portello and the sixteenth-century staircase – ideal scenery and stalls for all kinds of shows that enrich Padua’s summer with top-level international events with totally free admission.
Until the early 2000s the Portello district gave itself an image of neglect and abandon. The two events in question have been conceived and continue to find a fundamental motivation precisely in this objective: to transform the Door, the River and the historical Portello Staircase in meeting places and containers of artistic events that give back to the inhabitants and to all the people from Padua the desire to reclaim a site of great identity, symbolic and artistic value for the city.
The Porta Portello staircase, that was once the commercial port and the gateway to the city, thanks to the Portello River Festival and to River Film Festival – showcases of international music and independent cinema – returns now to life and it is a place of encounter and exchange, no more of goods, but of ideas, creativity and culture from near and far places. Today, thanks to the two festivals, Portello is no longer simply a point of passage or, worse, a non-place, but it has returned to be an historical reference center that the community recognizes and in which it identifies.
The Genius Locis of River Film Festival
is Canal Giovanni Antonio known as Canaletto, which, thanks to its famous painting Porta Portello, gave impetus to the rediscovery of the sixteenth-century staircase of Burchiello after decades of serious environmental and social degradation. Today, thanks to the redevelopment of the festival, the association has determined an urban transformation of the site through culture.