The fourth edition of the "Videogames &  High Culture " project will take place at the Cineporto di Bari, in a real-virtual mixed format.

On Friday 17 December 2021 at the Cineporto di Bari of the Apulia Film Commission, PM Studios & AgeOfGames convenes scholars and game designers from all over Europe to discuss, in a multidisciplinary round table, the multiple contaminations between Cinema, Literature and Videogames.

The project, promoted in collaboration with AFC and the Puglia Region, aims to investigate new horizons of "gameplay" and makes Puglia a set of new videogame productions.
 
What relationship exists, or could there be, between auteur cinema, classical literature and videogames? To what extent are old and new generations influenced and "educated" by videogame applications?
These and many other questions will try to answer videogames scholars and developers, during an international round table to be held in Bari, next Friday 17 December, in the Cineporto of the Apulia Film Commission, during a day organized by PM Studios & AOG, in collaboration with Apulia Film Commission, Puglia Region, and Department of Cultural Policies of the Municipality of Bari.

This is the fourth edition of the multidisciplinary project "Videogames e High Culture" which in Bari will develop on the theme "Videogames, Literature and High Culture".

The project has already participated in important national and European events, among which StraniMondi in Milan and, above all, devcom (Official partner of the project that hosts a spin-off of the round table every year in Cologne) stand out.

Representatives of important scientific, academic, artistic and cultural realities will participate in the international round table, also open to the public of gaming, cinema and literature enthusiasts. Furthermore, international guests will include Jos de Mul, professor of philosophical anthropology at the Erasmus School of Philosophy in Rotterdam and Polish game designer Marta Fijak, creative director of Anshar Studios, senior game designer of the successful video game Frostpunk.

Even the place where the round table takes place was not chosen by chance: it starts from the consideration that videogames and cinema have been meeting and shaping the great global entertainment market for 20 years, intertwining and sometimes confusing themselves between interactive universes and worlds of "classic" narration. Video games are naturally pushing the various sectors of the expressive arts to interact and create ever new forms of cross-media.

"It is often forgotten that the ludic experience, whether video or analog, takes place primarily in the player's mind, exactly as it happens with the stories told in films and novels. - explains Fabio Belsanti, CEO and lead game designer of P.M. Studios & AOG - This brings the spaces between these art forms very close, and leads players, especially videogames developers, to imagine and realize videogame productions in new gameplay and storytelling scenarios, showing more and more interest in projects that can change radically our culture ".

Among the objectives of the round table is to refute any form of prejudice regarding the interactive media, which a large part of public opinion considers a "second class" medium and would like to relegate video games only to the carefree entertainment sector.

In this regard, PM Studios Italia & AOG is also known for having developed educational videogame brands such as ScacciaRischi (www.scacciarischi.it) for major public institutions such as INAIL and the Puglia Region, which dealt with topics such as emergency from Covid19, or EcoWarriors (www.ecowarriors.it) who have spoken to over one million students of global ecological culture since 2008.

The "Videogames e High Culture" project was born in 2018 in Bari from an idea of Fabio Belsanti, game designer with a background as a historian, Roberto Talamo, literature theorist and teacher, and Elisa Di Lorenzo, CEO of Untold Games. It is they who have asked a first group of scholars and developers some crucial questions to contribute to the international discussion about the complex and multifaceted universe of videogames.