"Cine Club Salerno", a non-profit association of cinematographic culture, was born in 1945 from a group of friends which had an ambitious program: promoting culture through cinema. Thus, in 1946, the 1st National Exhibition of Cinema a Passo Ridotto was born. The Salerno Film Festival had its first edition in 1946, when it happened to be the first festival of the so-called movement of "reduced step", that lowered all 35 mm movies to 16 mm ones, for easier distribution. That historical edition was attended, among others, by
Vittorio De Sica,
Rossano Brazzi,
Adriana Benetti,
Maria Mercader and
Mariella Lotti. On that occasion, the projections were held not only in
Salerno, but also in
Cava de' Tirreni,
Positano and
Amalfi. Since its first edition, the festival has been held annually (with the exception of the 1953, 1957, 1959 and 1960 editions). The location is at the cinema
Augusteo, located at the ground floor of the northern
Palazzo di Città ("The Salerno Town Hall") and even sometimes at the Salerno's
Teatro Verdi. ==Innovations for film standards==