text: Festivals Arezzo is home to an annual international competition of choral singing Concorso Polifónico Guido d'Arezzo (International Guido d'Arezzo Polyphonic Contest).
  Arezzo is home to an annual medieval festival called the Saracen Joust (Giostra del Saracino). In this, "knights" on horseback representing different areas of the town charge at a wooden target attached to a carving of a Saracen king and score points according to accuracy. Virtually all the town's people dress up in medieval costume and enthusiastically cheer on the competitors.
  From 1986 to 2006 Arezzo was also home to an annual popular music and culture festival, each July, called Arezzo Wave. Publicly funded, it attracts bands of high repute and attendees from all over Europe and North America. It also features literary and film expositions. In 2007 it was replaced by PLAY Arezzo Art Festival, still about rock music, involving local bands. Some artists invited in 2007 and 2008 were: Negrita, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Joan Baez, Ben Harper, Goran Bregovic, Carmen Consoli, Max Gazzè, Peter Brook.
  In popular culture
  Arezzo has a starring role in Roberto Benigni's film Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella, 1997). It is the place in which the main characters live before they are shipped off to a Nazi concentration camp.