Sūqrepubliq looks to French nouvelle vague to inspire film festival identity

Italian design studio Sūqrepubliq was inspired by the intimate moods and feelings of French nouvelle vague cinema for the identity of the 2016 edition of the Bergamo Film Meeting. The festival is one of the oldest in Italy and is popular with dedicated cinephiles. The identity sought inspiration old movie frames and the designers wanted to combine these with a contemporary visual language. “The brief was very clear: BFM is experimenting new ways of promoting different genres and young talents through animation shorts or documentary projects while having a strong tradition of celebarating cinema from the 40s to the 80s,” say the designers.

The studio gave itself some basic, but very important, principles about the concept. “Our first principle was keep it simple, because the identity has to fulfil many different purposes, but every time it is used, it has to be understood clearly,” says the studio. “Our second principle, for similar reasons, was keep it different, because the staff and the public itself will fsee the identity for days and days. We didn’t want them to get bored after just a couple of hours.”

Used across the catalogue, website, posters, T-shirts, totes and much more, Sūqrepubliq has created a contemporary identity that does not shy from nostalgia, but embraces it. This was a deliberate design decision that intends to give the material a long life. “Film festival catalogues usually have a long second life in public libraries and cinephile living rooms, it’s an objet fétiche,” says the studio. “Last week we met a girl walking around with the festival T-shirt. Did she like it? She’ll use it. That’s the point.”