MUSA Film Critics Award – 3rd Edition – Nominees

https://www.colonnesonore.net/news/premi-e-concorsi/11518-premio-musa-della-critica-cinemusicale-le-nomination-2025.html

 

MUSA Film Critics Award: The nominees for the Film, TV Series, and Documentary categories for the 2025 season have been announced.

 

The international jury is already hard at work: the winners will be announced in April. The finalists for the third edition of the MUSA Film Critics Award—an award created to celebrate the excellence of soundtracks and the quality of visual music in Italy—have been officially announced. The announcement was made by the two jury presidents, Massimo Privitera and Marco Testoni, during the Rome Film Music Festival at the historic Studio A at the Forum, where Morricone recorded his soundtracks.

 

All the nominated musical works are from productions released in 2025.

 

The sixth round of Best Film Soundtrack includes: 40 Secondi by Alessandro Bencini, Cinque Secondi by Carlo Virzì, Fuori by Valerio Vigliar, Primavera by Fabio Massimo Capogrosso, Qui Staremo Benissimo by Pericle Odierna, and Testa o Croce? by Vittorio Giampietro.

 

The sixth round of the Best TV Series Soundtrack category includes: ACAB by Mokadelic, Belcanto by Stefano Lentini, Il Gattopardo by Paolo Buonvino, Imma Tataranni 4 by Andrea Farri, Le Onde del Passato by Emanuele Bossi & Michele Braga, and Sandokan by Calibro 35.

 

The list of finalists for Best Documentary Soundtrack includes: Hadar – Il Frutto di Dio by Franco Eco, Pontifex by Emanuele Frusi, and Vakhim by Tony Carnevale.

 

Now in its third edition, the Award recognizes the best soundtracks from Italian audiovisual productions of the past season. This year, the international jury—thanks in part to the collaboration with critics from the IFMCA (International Film Music Critics Association)—is composed of journalists from the specialized press, professors of applied music, record producers, and composer-essayists—the latter selected from among professionals who combine musical composition with the publication of critical or popular texts.

 

More specifically, for the Critics and/or Journalists category of the jury, listed alphabetically by publication: Renato Marengo (Cinecorriere, Ciao 2001), Carlo Griseri (Cinema Italiano), Gianmarco Diana (Cinematica), Matteo Marino (TV Film, Cineforum, Filmcronache), Jon Mansell (Movie Music International), Jonathan Broxton (Movie Music UK), Alberto Bazzurro (Musica Jazz), Piero Chianura (MusicEdu), Mirko Fabbreschi (Musicomics – Romics), Alessandro Boschi (Rai Radio 3 – Hollywood Party), Riccardo Giagni (Rai Radio 3), Alessandro De Rosa (RSI – Swiss Radio, Rai Radio 3), Fabrizio Forno (Radio Città Aperta), Paolo Nizza (Sky Tg24), Pierluigi Pietroniro (Soundtrack City), Gorka Oteiza (SoundTrackFest), Giuseppe Ceccato (TgCom24), and Federico De Feo (Wired, Rolling Stone). Among the professors, record producers, and/or composers-essayists are: Giacomo Agosti (professor), Marco Ferretti (record producer), Stefano Mainetti (composer, essayist), Alessandra Mazza (professor), Licia Missori (composer, essayist), Andrea Natale (record producer), Ilaria Pilar Patassini (singer-songwriter, professor), Fulvio Pietramala (professor), Rossella Spinosa (professor), and Eugenio Tassitano (composer, essayist). Jury chairs: the two creators and founders, Massimo Privitera and Marco Testoni.

 

Conceived and directed by Marco Testoni (Soundtrack City) and Massimo Privitera (ColonneSonore.net), the MUSA Award represents the specialized press’s response to the need to restore a full cultural dimension to visual music and the uniqueness of its language. This year, MUSA presents several major industry partners among its new alliances, including the publications Cinecorriere and Cinema Italiano, the film and music school Cineartemusica, and, finally, renews its fruitful collaboration with the Mercurio d’Argento Award in Massa, the event where plaques will be presented to the winners.

 

The award boasts a notable list of honorees: in the last edition, Giuliano Taviani and Carmelo Travia won jointly for Diamanti; and Margherita Vicario and Dade for Gloria!, along with Tom Rowlands for the television series M – Son of the Century. In the first edition, Santi Pulvirenti won for the film L’ultima notte di Amore and Calibro 35 for the television series Blanca 2.

 

This season will also feature the presentation of MUSA plaques to the winners, to be announced in April, as part of the Mercurio d’Argento Award, an event dedicated to film music held annually in Massa in August.

 

The directors of the MUSA Award

Massimo Privitera: A journalist and music critic, he edits the leading website ColonneSonore.net. He is the author of seminal essays such as “Soundtracks: Images Between Notes,” “When the Colts Sang,” and “Score Games – The Best Television Soundtracks of the 2000s.” An expert professor of music for the visual arts, he is the co-founder of Cineartemusica, a training center for film and music education.

 

Marco Testoni: Composer, music supervisor, and essayist. Founder of Soundtrack City, he has explored the connection between sound and visuals in volumes such as “Music and Visual Media,” “Music and Multimedia,” and “How Do You Listen to a Movie?” He teaches numerous master’s courses and workshops in applied music and music supervision and is co-founder of Cineartemusica, the first online school dedicated to the cinematic arts.