The idea of a film festival to be hold in the picturesque location of the Irpinia, was conceived by a determined and resourceful group of friends. They were deeply convinced that film art, as well as other art forms, is fundamental to the cultural development of man not only as a single person but also as a human being working for the progress and the emancipation of his community.

Cinema, as a figurative art, is not only a film sequence of events, stories and circumstances concerning human life, but it must also be conceived as a camera shot that explores man’s instincts and inner feelings representing as well his secret dreams and abstract tensions like a sculptor carving an artwork from a raw stone.

The Ariano International Film Festival aims at being a melting pot of human hopes, distress, dreams and adventures which could lead to realize and be aware of the inner true that “we are living here and now”.​