Have you ever heard of mahafaly, ku'ahl or kalaallisut? These are just 3 of the 52 languages that will be represented in the 8th edition of the Babel Film Festival. Rights, culture and identity come first in this event which represents a point of reference throughout the world for the cinema of linguistic minorities.

The Teatro Massimo, the arthouse Greenwich and Palazzo Doglio in Cagliari will, from 2 to 7 October, be the venue for an international film competition which «represents, to date, the only one dedicated to audiovisual productions spoken in minority languages throughout the world the world", specified Antonello Zanda, leader of the Cineteca Sarda, organizer together with Tore Cubeddu and Paolo Carboni.

Eighty-two films and 13 prizes up for grabs in what will be the richest edition ever. Thanks to the network of synergies established with other institutions, the festival will be accompanied by many collateral events. In addition to the daily screenings of films in competition and out of competition, during the week of the festival there will be the regional conference on the Sardinian language (Wednesday 4 October, in collaboration with the Region), the national conference on minority languages in the Rai public service (Thursday 5 October, in collaboration with Rai Sardegna), the General Assembly of Elen, European Language Equality Network (Saturday 7 October). In the evening there will be space for great music, with concerts and the artists of the program promoted with the collaboration of Jazz in Sardegna and S'Ardmusic.

« The Massimo can be considered the home of all the cultural forms of the city, and it was destiny - commented Massimo Palmas - that two festivals with a strong international vocation such as Babel and Jazz in Sardinia should sooner or later meet: despite having different languages, both have in fact always turning their gaze to the rest of the world, trying to compare different cultures and build bridges."

The world premieres and unpublished works were selected after a careful screening process: «We received over 2200 requests for participation», specifies Zanda. An important novelty of the 2023 edition of Babel is the membership of the Elen network, the largest NGO that has been dealing with linguistic rights at an international level since 2011 and has as its objective the valorization and protection of less widespread European languages. Comprising 174 organizations representing 50 languages in 25 European states, it will send 70 delegates to Cagliari for the festival to discuss the future of minorities.

Another important event will be the conference “Rai e limbas de minoritya” (Rai and minority languages), organized by Rai Sardegna. A first part will be of an institutional nature, dedicated to Rai's commitment towards the linguistic minorities of our country, the second, entitled "Where is the Sardinian language going?", will be more technical, with interventions, among others, by scholars of the Universities of Cagliari, Sassari and Siena.

«There are 225 languages spoken in Europe, but we in Sardinia are no different. Respecting a language means trying to preserve and maintain it. And in this sense we cannot help but admit that a generation has been lost in Sardinia, which is why we need to work on young people", comments Carmen Botti, director of Rai Sardegna.

In a global cinema context in which large productions increasingly promote standardized and universal languages, which in a certain sense flatten human expression, this festival wants to propose a relevant alternative. The minority language is a language that lives on its diversity and it is precisely the linguistic liveliness that enriches the cinema author, influences his creativity and has consequences in the definition of his work.

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