It was 2002, and three prominent critics named Alberto Barbera, Bruno Fornara and Lorenzo Pellizzari founded in Alessandria an event titled RING!, a true festival devoted to film criticism, to its practice, to its reflection on cinema and on itself. The name sprang from the many duels that pitted two or more critics who represented opposing fronts on a film, a director, or a tendency. In 2026, after several years of interruption, RING! returns to life curated by Giulio Sangiorgio, doing so within the Ottobre Alessandrino, the cultural festival directed by Luca Ribuoli and Roberto Lasagna, and it asks questions about the role, the language, and the future of those who watch cinema, interpret it, and tell its story, placing at the center a question as simple as it is provocative: what is the use of film criticism today?
The festival will take place over two days, Friday 9 and Saturday 10 October, and will feature seven events with some of the most important names in Italian film criticism as protagonists.
The first is a criticism masterclass led by Sangiorgio himself, followed by a segment titled “How We Were – The History of Ring!”, which will feature the artistic director of the Venice Biennale Alberto Barbera and critics Bruno Fornara and Nuccio Lodato to retrace the birth, the history, and the ideas of an experience that has shaped the relationship between cinema, festival, and criticism, and the screening of the film L’ultimo spettacolo – Appunti e frammenti per Giuliana Callegari by Angelo Barco, dedicated to the late critic.
The evening of the 9th will see Sangiorgio dialogue and duel with : two critics, two generations, two sensibilities and two ways of looking at cinema will clash over the high-level theories of the craft, in a true duel of ideas about the meaning and necessity of film criticism, while the screening of Le siège de l’Alcazar by Luc Moullet will close the day.
The second day will feature Rocco Moccagatta as the lead of “Uno contro tutti – In difesa della commedia italiana”, an appointment during which the critic will attempt to answer some uncomfortable yet necessary questions about our cinema. It will be followed by the presentation of the new issue of Bianco e Nero, the historic film studies magazine of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, dedicated to “La commedia italiana 2000-2025.”
In the afternoon Emanuela Martini (Cineforum), Carlo Valeri (Sentieri selvaggi) and Roy Menarini (film critic and curator of “Scrivere di audiovisivi. Ambiti, forme, strumenti”, forthcoming volume that will be presented in preview precisely during the meeting) will instead question what it means today to write about cinema and review in a media landscape that has changed profoundly, becoming increasingly vast, fast, and fragmented.
Subsequently Maria Sole Colombo, archivist, critic and film programmer, and Roberto Silvestri, journalist and film critic, will discuss one of the year’s most discussed and commented films, Odyssey by Christopher Nolan.
To close the two days, the Ring! Prize will be awarded to Fuori orario – Cose (mai) viste, Rai 3’s program that embodies a concept of criticism that has marked the history of Italian television and film culture. The closing evening will be enriched by a dialogue between Roberto Turigliatto, film critic, and Fulvio Baglivi, actor, director and screenwriter, both authors of Fuori orario – Cose (mai) viste, followed by the screening of Parola (su una) data [Estratti] by Enrico Ghezzi, a work that interrogates directors and philosophers, including Jacques Derrida and Slavoj Žižek, on the subject of 11 September.
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