Red carousel: the illustration for the Malescorto 2026 manifesto

Cinema thrives on images, and it's images that tell the story of its magic. That's why each edition of Malescorto is distinguished by an original poster, designed to represent the Festival's identity and accompany its communications.

For the 2026 edition, the poster design is based on an illustration by Carola Saglio Rossini , a young artist who attends the Novalia Art Academy in Alba, where she takes courses in painting, comics, and illustration. Her collaboration is part of the Malescorto creative and design team's ongoing efforts to develop talented young people under 35.

Carosello rosso, il manifesti di Malescorto 2026

"I wanted to create an image that recalls the origins of cinema through the zoetrope, populating it with characters capable of evoking different worlds and stories ," Carola explains. From this reflection, Carosello rosso (Red Carousel) takes shape , an illustration inspired by one of the first optical devices in pre-cinema history, capable of creating the illusion of movement through the rapid succession of images. Around the central structure, which recalls both the zoetrope and the cineograph , a small universe of characters from different films and imaginations develops .

The illustration features Edward and Kim from Edward Scissorhands , a female soccer player, the Cheshire Cat, Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard, Frankenstein, Alfred Hitchcock, the birds from Pennuti pluckati , and singer-songwriter Lucio Corsi. These figures are distant from one another but share the ability to evoke stories, emotions, and fragments of cinema, in a play of references that invites the viewer to linger on the details, to be intrigued, and to discover new meanings with every glance. The creation of the work was preceded by a brainstorming phase and numerous preparatory drafts: a process that led the young artist to gradually define the most suitable visual solutions, until the final version was chosen as the official image of Malescorto 2026.

Carola worked entirely digitally, making texture a distinctive element that characterizes the characters and gives the work a particular visual depth, amplified by the warm atmosphere created by the dominant red color, which recalls one of Malescorto's identifying colors.

With the official presentation of Carosello Rosso , Malescorto launches a series of cinematic surprises that, over the course of the Festival week, will be revealed night after night on the big screen.