Traditional carnival films online from Thursday to Shrove Tuesday

Given the suspension of the numerous carnivals that usually enliven squares and streets every year at this time, the Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina (Trentino Folklife Museum) wants to make a surprise for its fans with the broadcasting of two of the films produced by the museum: "3 carnivals and a half" and "Carnival King of Europe. Release 2.0'. Thanks to these films, everybody can experience the traditional masquerades that have been researched over the years by the Carnival King of Europe project.  

From 12.00 on Thursday 11 February until midnight on Tuesday 16 February, the full versions of these two films are available on the Museum YouTube channel  and Facebook page . These films have received important recognition for their rediscovery of the common cultural roots of winter masquerades in Europe, starting from their natural centre of gravity, that is Trentino and the Alps.

"3 carnevali e 1/2", direction, photography and editing Michele Trentini, conception and texts Giovanni Kezich, MUCGT (Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina), 2007, run time: 50′

A day in Valfloriana in Val di Fiemme, a day in Grauno in Val di Cembra, a day in Palù del Fèrsina in Val dei Mòcheni, and finally a day in Varignano near Arco: these are the most significant traditional carnivals in Trentino.

They're different from the now prevalent format of the parade of masked floats; they actually correspond to winter fertility rites, not unlike those found throughout Europe.

The films won the 2007 Costantino Nigra Award in the category "Visual Anthropology - Multimedia Systems".

"Carnival King of Europe. Release 2.0", film by Giovanni Kezich and Michele Trentini, MUCGT (Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina), 2011, run time: 34′

Produced as part of the European project of the same name, which has seen the ethnographic museums of Bilbao, Marseille, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Skopje, Sofia, Sibiu and Warsaw join the San Michele Museum since 2007, the film is inspired by the new vision of carnival and masquerades, later developed by Kezich in his book Carnevale re d'Europa (Carnival king of Europe) -Priuli & Verlucca, 2015-, in search of the common root of European cultural identity, starting with winter masquerades and the surprising similarities they reveal in characters, actions and the structure of ritual sequences.

The film won the Grand Prize for Documentary Film of the Kyoto University Museum in 2009, Etnofilm Čadca (Slovakia) "Ethnologist behind Camera - Award of the Slovak Society of Ethnography" in 2014, the special jury prize at the second edition of the Apricot Tree International Ethno-Film Festival (Armenia) in 2016.