Let's rewrite the rules!
CinematograFica was born on March 8, 2020
from the collaboration of
Claudia Morini di Tocco
Founding Member
Project Manager
and Gender Expert
“Libero cor nel mio petto soggiorna, non servo alcun, né d’altri son che mia” — Moderata Fonte
A gender expert and Arabist, she earned a GEMMA Master’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Granada and Utrecht, after a degree in Arabic language and culture and various experiences in Syria, Morocco, and Tunisia. She works as a consultant on gender issues and the prevention and response to gender-based violence in conflict and humanitarian contexts (she has worked for the UN in Latin America, the Middle East, and Kenya, and for various NGOs in the Arab world and South Sudan). A film enthusiast and former collaborator at various film festivals in the Florence area, she was the executive director of the N.I.C.E. New Italian Cinema Events festival. A motocross rider and skier, she loves wandering the souks around the world and embarking on adventurous journeys. Naturally, she adores adventure films that also feature a compelling and desperate love story. Her greatest undefeated battle remains that of deconstructing the myth of heteronormative romantic love.
Daniela Colamartini
Founding Member
Programming and
Logistics Manager
“The space of our lack is also the space of possibility” — bell hooks
Born and bred in L’Aquila, a Scorpio with a restless heart, she has always had a complicated relationship with time. Specializing in art history, she turned to film after years of working in event production. Since 2015, she has collaborated with the Festival dei Popoli, where she has been head of programming since 2017. She collaborated with the Middle East Now Film Festival from 2018 to 2021 and with the Tenk documentary film platform for 2020, while also serving as a juror at various festivals. She loves analog, detail, and the unexpected. On screen, she seeks drama and tension, but anything disturbing is welcome: subversion and deconstruction are her watchwords.
Simona Castoldi
Founding Member
Communications Manager
For, ”the outsider will say“ in fact, as a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country.” – Virginia Woolf – Three Guineas
A media and communications expert specializing in Film, Television, and Multimedia Production, she graduated with a Master’s in Radio and Television Journalism in 2017. Her experience spans editorial and audiovisual media outlets (including Class Editori and MyMovies) and press offices (including Sky Cinema). Since 2016, she has collaborated with several cultural festivals in Florence as a social media manager (Festival dei Popoli, Fabbrica Europa, River to River Radio Papesse). Sardinian by birth, Florentine by education, and Lisbonite at heart, she loves those films whose open endings everyone hates—the Sundance ones, in short. She’s been a Nicole Kidman worshipper since she was 16 and would have loved to star in almost all of Sofia Coppola’s films.
Alessandra Marianelli
HELLO, I AM LUCHADORA!
I could have told you about my past as a Luchadora in Mexico, as a lion tamer in Asia, or as an astronaut with short trips to the moon, but I’ll just tell you who I am now.
My name is Alessandra Marianelli, aka Luchadora (a stage name inspired by Mexican wrestlers, whose vibrant colors, imagination, and energy their masks convey have always fascinated me). “Forms” are the foundation of my illustrations: exaggerated, rounded, and sinuous, they fill spaces with color and create harmony. I happily collaborate on a variety of projects, from publishing to poster art, from urban interventions to paintings (essentially, interpretations of the world seen through the eyes of a slightly grown-up child).
www.luchadora.it
Valentina De Pascale
Member
Born in Rome (yes, Rome, Rome!), but now Florentine by adoption, she graduated in German and French languages, communication, and translation from Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, where she lived for several years. She has worked in a variety of fields, from cultural to social and academic, later choosing to specialize in the planning and management of European and national funds. Passionate about topics such as gender equality, audiovisual education, economic and financial education, and digitalization, she enjoys building networks of trust, working in teams but also independently, striving to streamline the bureaucratic processes associated with project proposal submissions and deadlines. Her diverse work experience makes her a flexible individual with excellent listening and adaptability skills.
Odessa Mourier
Passionate about images, especially those that change and heal the world, she is French by blood and Italian by heart. With a degree in art history and cultural sociology, she works in the production and coordination of various cultural projects in Europe. She is a PhD candidate in political science and sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, where she studies creativity and the imagination in ecofeminist movements. She describes the three founders of CinematograFica as her Italian fairy godmothers. She loves misunderstanding and the night. She loves crying in front of a movie, out of sadness, relief, joy, representation, or nostalgia, and it’s always a good reason to have a drink afterward.
Camilla Guerrato
Member
I found my way into cinema almost by chance, coming as I do from a background in languages and the inclusion of migrants in Italy. Perhaps precisely for this reason, I recognised cinema as a powerful language — one capable of creating connections through images, gazes, and stories, beyond the linguistic and cultural barriers I work with in everyday life. With cinema, no intermediaries are needed. Building bridges is what I feel to be my superpower. Bringing together people and realities encountered through my many travels has allowed me to take part in cultural projects and connect inspiring spaces such as CinematograFica and Nuovo Armenia in Milan, or Eden Paraíso in São Vicente, Cape Verde. This is the spirit with which I wish to continue being part of this project: to build bridges, using cinema as a tool for encounter, awareness, and discovery.
Sara Sayad Nik
Member
I was born and raised in Florence to Iranian parents, in a border space that has shaped my gaze and the way I inhabit the world. It is in and between spaces that I approach life. I work in social activism as an anti-trafficking and severe exploitation caseworker, and I am also a linguistic and intercultural mediator. I am involved in cultural work as well, and have long collaborated in the organisation of the Middle East Now Festival. I am, and have been, very active in student activism, from secondary school through to university. Alongside my social and cultural work, I teach music to children in the summer music centres of the Fiesole School of Music, where I trained as a musician. I am also a student of Economic Development, International Cooperation, Socio-Health Studies, and Conflict Management at the University of Florence. Like my origins, I move through and inhabit different spaces every day – social, cultural, political, and artistic. For this reason, I seek out spaces where activism, cinema, and artistic practices can intertwine as tools for social transformation.
Kali Swaid
Member
Kali is a multidisciplinary artist with a multicultural background. A Trans-Feminist not only by choice but also by force since it’s the ONLY way for her to exist “Freely” in today’s world. She holds two degrees in fashion design, speaks four languages, plays two musical instruments & sings. She is a Multi-Potentialite mixing her skills to play various roles like: Fashion Designer, English Teacher, Fashion Design Professor, Photographer, Translator, Diversity Ambassador, Human Rights Activist Speaker, Costume Designer and Performer. Her activism is grassroots and is most impactful in first hand contact. Kali is an “Experience” to be lived, not a personality one can understand… Kali is a “Work in Progress”