i mill

e oc

chi

15t

h Ed

ition

Te

atro

Mie

la T

riest

e S

epte

mbe

r 16

_22,

201

6

Festival internazionale del cinema e delle arti

Festival internazionale del cinema e delle arti

www.imilleocchi.com@IMilleOcchiMille Occhi

il festival dell’Associazione Anno uno

con il contributo di

project partnersLa Cineteca del Friuli, FIAF – Archivio Cinema delFriuli Venezia Giulia, Gemona (UD)Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – CinetecaNazionale, RomaCineteca Bologna, BolognaSlovenski filmski center, LjubljanaTransmedia, GoriziaGustav film, LjubljanaFestival del film LocarnoDeutsches Filminstitut - DIF, FrankfurtDeutsche Kinemathek - Museum fur Film undFernsehen, BerlinBundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, BerlinGoethe-Institut Triest, TriesteFuori orario - RAI 3, RomaL’Officina Film Club, Roma

Associazione culturale Anno uno

PresidenteMichele Zanetti

VicepresidenteGiuliano Abate

DirettoreSergio M. Grmek Germani

ConsiglieriMarie-Françoise Brouillet Annamaria CameriniIgor KocijančičOlaf MöllerAlice Rispoli Dario Stefanoni

on the coverAnn Sheridan with James Cagney in a scenephotos of William Keighley Torrid Zone(Collection Anno uno).

AIRSC - Associazione Italiana per le Ricerche diStoria del Cinema, Morlupo (Roma)Penny Video, RomaArchivio nazionale cinematografico dellaResistenza, TorinoCivici musei, Comune di TriesteCasa del cinema di TriesteAFIC, Associazione Festival Italiani di CinemaCasa dell’Arte, TriesteKinoatelje, GoriziaKinodvor, LjubljanaSlovenski klub, TriesteFilm parlato, rivista onlineComunicarte, TriesteZavod En-Knap, LjubljanaSlovensko stalno gledališče - Teatro stabilesloveno, Trieste

I mille occhi / The Thousand EyesFestival internazionale del cinema e delle arti / International Arts and Film FestivalXV: Eternal BreastsTrieste, Teatro Miela, 16‡22 September 2016Preview in Rome, Cinema Trevi - Cineteca Nazionale, 13‡14 September 2016

fuori orariocose (mai) viste

casadelcinema.trieste

c

con il patrocinio di

comune di trieste

civici museirato alla

ideazione, ricerche e messa in scena Sergio M. Grmek Germani

con la collaborazione al programma di Fulvio Baglivi, Cecilia Ermini, Mila Lazić, Olaf Möller,Simone Starace, Dario Stefanoni, Roberto Turigliatto

coordinamento Nancy Reiscon la collaborazione diFrancesca Bergamasco, Giulia Pigato, Dario Stefanoniassistenti coordinamentoThays de Campos, Aurora Peccolo

movimentazione Luca Luisa

ufficio stampa e comunicazione online -realizzazioni video Francesca Bergamasco assistenti ufficio stampa e comunicazioneLivio Cerneca, Benedetta Cericola, Costanza Cecchinicon la collaborazione di Anna Sardo, Caterina Perini

social teamMassimiliano Vaccaro, Rosa Vassalloassistenti social team Antonella Lestingi, Jacopo Todaro, LinamariaPalumbo, Vida Skerk

ospitalitàMartina Scianassistenti ufficio ospitalità Gabriella Corrado, Giuseppa Magaddino

amministrazioneAndrea Mazzani

sito internetZenmultimedia

assistenza informaticaStefano Biloslavo

accoglienza, maschere, infopointAnna Maria Franceschini, Annalisa Di Lorenzo, Anna Di Marco, Ambre Valerio, Caterina Perini,Cecilia Garbellano, Claudia Crudele, Emma Peri,Emiliana Provenzale, Francesca Tosetto, FridaCarena, Gabriella Corrado, Giulietta Ferluga,Giuseppa Magaddino, Jacopo Todaro, Nadia Gorian,Ruben Mastroilli, Susanna Labbri, Valeria Dainotti,Vida Skerk, Cecilia Garbellano

fotografiGiovanni Aiello, Stefania Pastur, Giovanni Monguzzi

videomaker e editing Andrea Penso, Betty Maier, Giuseppe Mangiafico

Si ringraziano

tutti i cineasti e i produttori dei film in programma,tutti gli autori e gli editori dei testi pubblicati,tutti i partecipanti agli incontri,

gli enti sostenitoriRegione Autonoma Friuli Venezia GiuliaFondazione Benefica Kathleen Foreman Casali

project partners e collaboratoriCINETECA DEL FRIULI – ARCHIVIO CINEMA DEL FRIULIVENEZIA GIULIAdirettore Livio Jacobarchivio film Elena Beltrami, Alessandro De Zan,Simone Londero, Alice Rispoli, Andrea Tessitoresi ringraziano per la collaborazione Piera Patat,Giuliana Puppin, Ilaria Cozzutti, Ivan Marin

CENTRO SPERIMENTALE DI CINEMATOGRAFIA – CINETECA NAZIONALEpresidente, conservatore Stefano Rullidirettore generale Marcello Fotidirettore Gabriele Antinolficonservatore Sergio Toffettidiffusione culturale e programmazione Laura Argentocon Juan Del Valle, Maria Coletti, Domenico Monetti,Luca Pallanch, Annamaria Licciardello, Fulvio Baglivi,Franca Farina, Viridiana Rotondi, Silvia Tarquini,e lo staff del Cinema Trevi

CINETECA BOLOGNAdirettore Gian Luca Farinelliarchivio Andrea Meneghelli, Carmen Accaputo

FUORI ORARIOenrico ghezzi, Roberto Turigliatto, Fulvio Baglivi,Donatello Fumarola, Lorenzo Esposito

L’OFFICINA FILM CLUBPaolo Luciani, Cristina Torelli

FESTIVAL DEL FILM LOCARNOCarlo Chatrian, Roberto Turigliatto, Iria Lopez,Caterina Renzi

Paola Olivetti, dell’Archivio nazionale cinematograficodella ResistenzaNerina T. Kocjančič di Slovenski filmski center Ines Bayer di DIF Alexandra Hagemann di Goethe-Institut TriestElena Dagrada dell’AIRSCVera Robić Škarica di Hrvatski filmski savezAngelo Draicchio, Cristina D’Osualdo di Ripley’s FilmGiorgio Nogherotto, Rita Ravalico, GuglielmoDanelon, Francesco De Luca, Rosella Pisciotta,e Daniele Marzona, Michele Sumberaz Sotte, BarbaraScarciglia, Alice Bensi, Francesco Sacchi, Valentina

Molaro di Teatro Miela - Cooperativa BonawenturaBruna Scaggiante di LILT TriesteSandi Škerk di Azienda agricola ŠkerkRaffaella Fort di Libreria Lovat, TriesteDario Zidarič di Azienda Agricola ZidaričIgor Prinčič di Transmedia, GoriziaAna Cimerman di KinodvorPetra Vidmar di Gustav film, LjubljanaAleš Doktorič, Mateja Zorn di Kinoatelje, GoriziaPoljanka Dolhar di Slovenski klub TrstLorenzo Esposito di Film parlato Ingrid Sergaš e Tanja Mljač di Consolato generalesloveno a Trieste Valentina Repini di Teatro stabile sloveno, TriesteGoran Pakozdi di Zavod EN-KNAPMassimo Premuda di Casa dell’Arte TriesteMaddalena Giuffrida, Walter Stanissa diAgriturismo Juna

si ringraziano inoltre Francesca Alessandrini, Luisa Alzetta, AdrianaAttanasio, Adriano Aprà, Chiara Barbo, GiovanniBarbo, Maria Teresa Bassa Poropat, SaraBergamasco, Paolo Bertagni, Elisa Bonazza,Veronika Brecelj, Isidoro Brizzi, Sara Cannarella,Francesco Cappellotto, Marco Cecchini, DubravkaCherubini, Piero Colussi, Sergio Crechici, ToninoDe Bernardi, Daniela De Vincenzi, CeciliaDonaggio, Piero Del Giudice, GiuseppeFaggiotto, Massimo Ferrari, Beatrice Fiorentino,Erik Frieden, Gabriele Giuli, Massimo Greco,Federica Gregori, Chiara Lamonarca, Giulio Lauri,Paolo Lughi, Jaruška Majovski, Chiara Omero,Breda Pahor, Boris Pahor, Rossana Paliaga,Federico Poillucci, Nenad Polimac, Victor Rasetto,Valentina Ricci, Nicoletta Romeo, Antonio Rubini,Gianni Sadar, Cristina Sain, Liliana Savioli, GiadaScaini, Massimiliano Schiozzi, Francesco Selvi,Francesco S. Slocovich, Marko Sosič, DanieleTerzoli, Fulvio Toffoli, Gianni Torrenti, RenataToson, Silvia Vallaro, Baldo Vallero, GiorgiaVenturoli, Antonella Varesano, Loris Zecchine Trattoria da Giovanni, MAST - Drinks’ Showcase,Pizza New - Largo Barriera, Hotel Colombia, B&B Amelie, B&B Ai Moretti, B&B Smartrooms

catalogo a cura di Simone Staracecon la collaborazione diDario Stefanonicon contributi di Sergio M. Grmek Germani, Mila Lazić, Olaf Möller

grafica e impaginazione Cristina Vendramin

stampaPoligrafiche San Marco, Cormons

traduzioni e interpreti Elena Valentinuzzi, Emilia Burgio, Francesca Rosa,Francesca Tosetto, Giorgia de Zen, Giulia Olivo,Jaruška Majovski, Mark Mathias, Patrycja Matusewicz,Melania Ravalico, Simone Starace, Riccardo Valentini

proiezioni Paolo Venier

sottotitoli Evelyn Dewald Caporali

premio Anno uno realizzato da Stefano Coluccio, Canestrelli - Venice Mirrors, Venezia

selezione vini e omaggi ospiti offerti daAzienda agricola Škerk, Duino Aurisina (TS)Azienda agricola Zidarič, Duino Aurisina (TS)Gastronomia Snack Bar Ferdi, TriesteCaffè Teatro Verdi, TriesteCaffè degli Specchi, TriesteCaffè San Marco, TriesteMimì e Cocotte, Trieste

piattaforma mobile marketingElisa Crestani Solution

media partners

E giunge l’onda,ma non giunge il mare.

Clemente Rebora, Canti anonimi

Fifteenth edition: Let’s celebrate!The “communication” would like here that would explain the whys and whereforesof our history, one that we hope is rather the discovery of a thousand spectators.Because it attracts us most of the stop Rebora his last lecture, or get lost and losesheets of Antonin Artaud in his return from the madness conference.Artaud would write better friend Alessandro Cappabianca, another close friend ofMichele Mancini which we devote a tribute.It would certainly be easier to attract attention if we dedicated a programme inPaolo Sorrentino.But, in the utopia that there is an audience today that is not limited to heatedsoups (good only for a ribollita or a jota), we follow undeterred in our passions,and even they encourage others.Say Artaud suggests immediately (once again) to Dreyer, his accomplice inFalconetti detract from the sacrifice. Dreyer whose work after La passion de Jeanne d’Arc and Vampyr was a shelter inthe clinic Jeanne d’Arc. And then it is impossible for him to become ever Italianfilmmaker because the African Mudundu was diverted to even Italian-Frenchcolonial routine (but the war is near), and because the last hope of realizing itsnon-virtual Jesus was not collected by the Church after Giovanni XXIII.There are therefore, in movies and in life, in which suspension is a destiny (Rebora,Artaud) but more often violent arrests due to economic impositions. Believe whathe believes Ordet would lead the company to economic that only the changing ofthe living dead in permits. Utopia like that of the Russian cosmists (Fedorov inparticular), to reconstruct the bodies of ancestors in other spaces, was madeparodic from Stalinist communism and spaceflight destalinized complete with

One or two things in a thousandNotes on mise-en-scèneby Sergio M. Grmek Germani

7

sacrificed Laikas. It should be honored how Amadeo Bordiga called the Earth’sgravity, how it made it to the apocalyptic Rossellini between L’età del ferro and theinterview with Allende. But even apocalyptic Guareschi in La rabbia exceedsPasolini. Rossellini in the fragment Santa Brigida with Ingrid Bergman realizes theexemplary relationship between what the film refrains home runs and the endlessdestruction. Even today we see them multiply, sometimes witnessed by imagesthat make us helpless spectators. Proposing today in the festival some of the most sensitive images (or even thesound of a radio program without images) on the earthquake that struck 40 yearsago Friuli, intertwined for us with the movie poster from the pity of the great loveLuca Comerio (of which you will see in opening words of the Roman planning afilm about the Carnival of Nice, which today can not fail to recall the destructionof self-destruction which has become a criminal abandonment screw further as areward). Also interwoven with the new burst of shock in the Italian landscape.Interwoven with the passing of a hostile nature made by two great Italianfilmmakers (Renato Dall’Ara, Walter Santesso) that Dario Stefanoni rabdomanticallypicks in the territory to be rediscovered the Veneto filmmakers: surprising howfew have realized the subversive Santesso force ( most vital of both right and leftmovimentuma in recent Veneto history), and enchantment at times by JacquesDemy (songs, Castelnuovo in the unscreanable Mercanti di vergini) of Dall’Ara.Italy, like Rossellini most of all he knew, requires endless journeys. They are upto Vittorio Cottafavi (who worked with the great writer from Carnia, Siro Angeli)and Raffaello Matarazzo, of which this year for the anniversary will evokeelsewhere another heated soup (popular cinema ...) that instead we the vision ofthe intruder orient better. Other dreyerian film, with the baby already too adult(Paola Quattrini) that question how it is possible (by Amedeo Nazzari) love a dead.In a few other films also love violence as a possession of man over woman,braided social roles, is so transparently made and passed. It is also a water film,with a boat that is joining the woman from another world and another life. Filmwhich then is reflected in us already beloved The young master Giorgio Bianchi.Water is also the Wisbar Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen, in an epic tale of going fromsigns of Nazi catastrophe collected in a sinking ship disaster: with so many femalefigures, to contradict the schematic that after the war he would have forgotten hisnobles feminine film of the ‘30s (which we showed last year). The women’s group

in the belly of the ship is between Genina, Matarazzo’s La nave delle donnemaledette and women’s groups of Mädchen in Uniform which Wysbar produced.But he also remembers the crash told by Pabst in Der letzte Akt, not only great film(anything but riconciliantesi with Nazism as tales denied by the exhibition curatedby Olaf Möller in Locarno and in progress in various editions of the ThousandEyes) but also great work of thought, which express the conviction and distanceto the destruction of nature as his only possible fate. I hope that we will presentit in the future (as I hope to Forough Farrokhzad, and for the film that gives thetitle to the edition, the great Japanese actress Kinuyo Tanaka who was also thegreatest filmmaker in Japan). Meanwhile, we are pleased to continue our discoveryof Harald Braun (with two magnificent films including Herz der Welt, entitledGriffith, evoking the story of pre-World War Bertha von Suttner, which inspiredDreyer for one of his first screenplays , it comes down from the guns), and Wisbar/ Wysbar (with another masterpiece as well as the one mentioned). In another way the beloved Marina Pierro (which we meat few years ago in notspread grasp the imprint dreyeriana in Borowczyk) will present in Himorogi theimages of her restrained and praised the master. We’re really happy with thepreview of his (her son Alessio) triptych for the first time together (and re-editedfor the first two films). In the aforementioned Himorogi images from Borowczykmake, from the retainer to the movement, one of the deep meanings of cinema.As it makes another female perspective that we welcome, to Elvira Giallanella forUmanità, the only film among the many notable that between the wars moved bythe memory of the premonition.In the program there are also male filmmakers films traversed by femalecocreazioni, Vlado Škafar to include more than yet cinema cinema Siro Angeli,who in the magnificent video interview of Ermes Dorigo evokes the teacher ElisaDavanzo and the two poets wives, Liliana Guidotti and Alida Airaghi; and ends thebroadcast with a “I have not had the opportunity to talk about the relationship withmy mother.” But the same Maria Zef rewrites the narrative in splendid FriulianVenetian Paola Drigo, living it then as an actor, a brilliant choice of Cottafavi whoentered into the soul of the Angels, to the point that suggest the volume of poemsBarba Zef e jò.In short, this sltream of program within I mille occhi 2016 (among many sent topieces) is perhaps indispensable enough to find at least a thousand spectators.Among the sons of no one adopted by Simone Starace we will see among other

8 9

things a film corealized by Trieste filmmaker Giacomo Gentilomo (anotheranniversary) that fits with the story of the attack on Roosevelt, in a counter-historyplots ranging from Lang to Frankenheimer; and a film of a cousin of Genina andCamerini going rediscovered, Giulio Morelli (other codirected the film, to make iteven more the son of nobody).Camerini will see a discovery that smacks of the miraculous, for us one of themost popular films of all Italian cinema, Il documento. The Buffatti collectiondonated to the Cineteca del Friuli it contained a complete copy 16mm, and thefestival will project the preview. Term more than ever appropriate to fiction in thisfilm that opens with the beginning of the twentieth century, and is made in 1939:as other Camerini noncanonical it distills the sense of time, of the age of the bodies,in no other so central filmmaker although quintessential film. There appears amagnificent Maria Denis, actress among the largest of Italian cinema (we see abeautiful image from one frame of the film, opening in this text), and a sacredmonster of acting, Ruggero Ruggeri, perhaps never so great as here, at the levelof Mozhukhin in the Kulešov experiment (also an image of Ruggeri twilightillustrates these pages). That’s how you build The thousand eyes: Find out the latest film with Ruggeri wassurprisingly the first feature film by Carmelo Bene, beyond the possiblerandomness, there is quickly appeared a shock. So why not schedule time (evenif we could do this several times) this masterpiece of 1968, which is among themost enduring emblematic that year? Especially we are pleased to be able toprogram in the first and longest version presented at the time at the Venice, andinstead shortened, certainly with intelligence copyright, for theatrical release; andto be able to present the printed rushes silent black and white. And therefore, inanother encounter between creating high male and female, as invited for theoccasion Lydia Mancinelli, madonna of his films?Italian cinema beyond the wall of time: for this festival is one of the mostconvinced objectives, and not only for the Italian cinema, to dispel the idea thatonly cinema just realized is pointing to today. The films can be of all ages, whichis now revealed in their true light. That is why we reiterate that it is not the digitalrestorations to make of contemporary films, but can sometimes help. But a copyperiod remained for decades not view arrives today with a physical presenceperceptible really for the first time.The program offers the valuable collection of film from L’Officina Filmclub

10 11

disappeared through cinema we were companions in life: the Roman friend PaoloZapelloni (preview at the Trevi Paolo Luciani last year made an intervention movedinforming us of his severe conditions); Elena Fava who joined us for the tribute tothe father; Gianni Rondolino which admired the tenacity in wanting to make Torinoplace of cinematic research; and Annamaria Percavassi, with whom we sharedmany experiences, from La Cappella Underground to the television program Unacineteca per una regione for the four unforgettable retrospectives that we couldcurate at Alpe Adria Cinema which she directed; then there were some clouds, butAnnamaria was always among the spectators of I mille occhi as I was at her TriesteFilm Festival; and the meeting at the Trieste Casa del Cinema, thanks to MariaTeresa Bassa Poropat.Finally some lost presences we loved: Maureen O’Hara, Nicoletta Machiavelli,Silvana Pampanini, Moira Orfei, Marina Malfatti, Nicole Courcel, Franca Faldini,Patty Duke (but then that we discover also disappeared Mandy Rice-Davies, whoupset the our adolescent impulsiveness). Franco Citti and Giorgio Albertazzi for usare plaited to the aforementioned tribute to Zurlini, the first for one of the mostunderrated films, the second also generously introduced for us at the Trevi cinemaboth Zurlini and Käutner’s La rossa. Among the directors we hit the loss of AndrzejZulawski, whose last masterpiece deserves a symbolic Anno uno award; MichaelCimino, unjustly abandoned by the cinema; Jacques Rivette, Eldar Rijazanov, JanNemec, Abbas Kiarostami, Mihovil Pansini, Gene Wilder, Carlo Di Carlo, and otherswe are guilty not to name.

1312

deposited in the Fund Ciro Giorgini at the Cineteca del Friuli, moves us toward the‘70s and beyond with an Italian film by Glauber Rocha who wanders betweenudigrudi influences, the music of Tony Scott from Maresco (scheduled with hisfilms of Franco Scaldati) and the tender Juliet Berto, dropped in a Rome which isa prelude to that which nicoliniana the workshop is a monument. Then we go tothe ‘77 with the masterpiece of Grifi and Sarchielli (in the personal copy of thelatter) Anna once again surprise you with its classic take from a world of the mosttransient. And in addition, a late Luciano Emmer film that, in a double Italian andFrench version, closes the first and last night of the festival, leaving us to dreamof nocturnal wandering female presence (including Paolina Bonaparte and thesame Villa Borghese as a female entity).Returning to Camerini, he will henceforth present in the festival through thedaughter Manitta, entered our directors, of which we are proud, and which alsowelcomes Marie-Françoise Brouillet, Valerio Zurlini companion became friend ofthe festival on the occasion of staff that we dedicated to one of the chief Italianfilmmakers. With the staff we discovered movies and ignored versions, also thanksto the reports of Gianni Da Campo. We believe that the staff (with a few shots inthe Titanus programme in Locarno) is the challenge from which to deepen theknowledge of the director, and we hope that all personal future will discover more,and does not just warm the soup.In our directors they have entered also young researchers and valued members ofthe city’s cultural policy, among the many who have not wanted to really grow theculture. We mention only Michele Zanetti, who with the Basaglia Trieste operationmarked in the best way; but for this writer it was among the first speakers incinema attendance in the Cineforum Triestino. The thousand eyes because, despitebeing marked rather by French criticism discoveries (and insuperably of “Présencedu cinéma”) have always wanted to confront the true passions of Italian critics.The presence of Zanetti in the program will allow us also one of the mostappropriate gifts to Guido Botteri, who was among the spectators careful of ourfestivals (and also, among other things, promoting the production of Maria Zef forthe Third Regional network of which he was director of office; student of theDiego de Henriquez Trieste runs downward; curator of a series of monographs ofthe region characters that included volumes of Boris Pahor, Alojz Rebula, ErmesDorigo and others).As well as Guido Botteri this edition aims to be dedicated to some others which

Premio Anno uno

Dragi Vlado, Dear Vlado,The Film Festival “I mille Occhi” was supposed to meet your cinema andit could have happened earlier. Now the fact that you are willing toconclude with Mama, though we hope that a thousand other filmsfollow, underlines its long lasting presence. The To Be, the poeticdeclaration of Leo McCarey, appeared to be its strong sense for us,precisely because your cinema reacts to death. If Otroci remembers theSlovenian outstanding poet Prešeren’s Memento Mori, moving becauseof how the scholastic memories of the character become a poeticinspiration, in the subsequent Deklica in drevo we hear some of themost impatient moments of the catastrophes which dominate our time,form the sublime Štefka Drolc and Ivanka Mežan: the mental picture of9/11 jumps into the void, the “missing persons” still called pogrešaniinstead of acknowledging their death: only then it will be possible towish for their Dreyerian return to life. I do not think that it is sheerchance if Vlado has elected as well the Larisa Šepit’ko’s Kril’ja in hisbest films of cinema history’s Top ten. We have screened it twice and wehave always loved it: its final flight leads to a real infinity we can seethrough the female figures who are the basis of his cinema, in echo withthe beloved Joni, paradoxically also in the Oča’s meeting between thefather and the son where the homerun of the mother is a presence.Thereby he is a more universal director than ever, also because he isintimately Slovenian, starting with the looks on Prekmurje, Bela Krajinaand Benečija in the last three films, landscape of a soul that wandersfrom that specific place to the world. In the debut of Stari most, longshot on the destroyed bridge of Mostar, Vlado had already carried out atheoretical action of cinema against destruction. The subsequentPeterka (as well as the subsequent backstage) could deceive, giving theimpression of being directed to a mission that was introverted instead.Mojca, thanks to his listening of trembling of the word, even which itappears to be dominant in the main character reminded us that lovemoves cinema even when there is absence. Se še spominjaš ljubezni?[Do you still remember love?]

Associazione Anno unoSeptember 2016

To Be: Vlado Škafar

17

VLADO ŠKAFAR(1969, Slovenia) Slovenian director, sreenplayer, editor,film critic, man of letters, engaged inthe diffusion of the cinematic culture.He was co-founder of the SlovenianCinematheque in 1993 and the IsolaCinema Film Festival 1999. His docu-mentary Letter to a Child is a first of thetrilogy about family, followed by hisfirst feature Dad (2010), his second fea-ture Mama (2016), which has its worldpremiere in Rotterdam.

STARI MOST[THE OLD BRIDGE]Director, screenplay: Vlado Škafar; cin-ematography: Janez Kališnik; editing:Igor Šterk; production: I. Šterk forA.A.C. Productions; origin: Slovenia,1998; format: 35mm, col.; length: 12’.35mm from Slovenska kinoteka.

“The story about the old bridge inMostar, which was once annd wouldbe again, but never the same asbefore.” (Vlado Škafar, 1998)

PETERKA: LETO ODLOčITVE[PETERKA: YEAR OF DECISION]Director, screenplay, editing: VladoŠkafar; cinematography: Aleš Belak;cast: Primož Peterka, Renata Bohinc,Matjaž Zupan, Robert Kranjec, UrošPeterka; production: Dimitrij Gračnerfor Gustav Film; origin: Slovenia, 2003;format: 16mm and 35mm; length: 120’.35mm from Slovenski filmski center.

This documentary film about PrimožPeterka is a living film monument tothe young champion and his decisionto film his way back to the top; how-ever, it is also a film about a young manand his maturing. The film shows ayear in the life of Primož Peterka, oneof the greatest Slovenian championsand idols, twice the winner of the SkiJumping World Championship. In theyear that presented the young sports-man with so many decisive moments— the attempt to establish himselfagain in the sport, the birth of the child,creating a new home... The film followshis activities, his thoughts and emotionsabout both, his professional and privatelife, as well as the thoughts and emo-tions of people closest to him.

POD NJIHOVO KOŽOUNDER THEIR S.K.I.N.Director, screenplay, cinematography,editing: Vlado Škafar; cast: Iztok Kovač,Sašo Podgoršek, Karmit Burian, JulyenHamilton, Gali Kaner, Andrea Rauch,Carme Renalias, Sebastiano Tra -montana, Clement Hamilton, Justin

18

Hamilton, Matej Kovač, Samo Kovač;production: Zavod EN-KNAP; origin:Slovenia, 2006; format: video, col.;length: 58’.DVD from Gustav film.

“In June last year [2005], Iztok Kovačand Sašo Podgoršek invited me to doc-ument the shooting of their new filmwith a video camera. Or shall I say thecreative process of making of the film,since for the eight members of the crewthis creative process in the veins of theTrbovlje mine was constantly recon-ceived; the spiritual and body move-ments recurrently domesticated the for-eign land-scapes of the abandonedunderground. And this was exactlywhat became the central question: howto join the opposing concepts of thefreedom of dance creation and theshooting of a film? Dance is based onimprovisation, coincidence, but aboveall freely uses space and time. Filminevitably has to follow strict rules andwhich dictates not only spatial limita-tions, but particularly time limitations.”(Vlado Škafar)

OTROCILETTER TO A CHILDDirector, screenplay, editing: VladoŠkafar; cinematography: Aleš Belak;production: Petra Vidmar and FrenkCelarc for Gustav Film; origin:Slovenia, 2008; format: video, col.;length: 100’.Blu-ray (from HD) from Slovenski film-ski center.

“Letter to a Child offers intimate con-versations with strangers about theirlives and living in this world. Itrevolves around the child and child-hood as the basis for one’s outlook onone’s life. From there, it is only a shortstep to reflections on essential themes:today’s life and world, our place in theworld, the social, political, moral, butalso the spiritual and emotional. Thefilm attempts to penetrate the deepestexperiences of life. Through conversa-tion, it casually reveals the individual’ssense of this world, one’s life andhuman faith (faith in this world). It isnot a survey, nor an interview; theseare encounters, deep conversations,human dialogues, which also slowlyreveal one’s own world. The film inter-twines the intimate diary with the socialchronicle.” (Slovenski filmski center)

“Film can be simple. Just a document.It can just record what you see andwhat you hear. It can be pure. Whynot? At least that seems to be what themaker here is striving for. Letter to aChild looks simple, but it's about allmajor issues such as happiness, loveand death.The Slovenian director Vlado Škafarinterviewed ordinary people. Or maybeinterview is the wrong word; he gotthem talking. It’s a mistake to think thatordinary people say ordinary things.About happiness, for instance. Aboutlove. Or about death. Issues aboutwhich few people speak easily, but thepeople in Škafar’s film do. Occasionallyit looks as if he is only focusing on thesunlight falling on their face, and hisquestion seems to be a sideline and

19

Primož Peterka in the film

the Hungarian border for a meeting. Hetells us that Slovenian people theredon’t have a word for love. I watch hiseyes in the rearview mirror. When hegets out, I tell Frenk, ok, he can beDad. Miki brings Sandi. He's too old.But he has face and hair and eyes andmouth of an angel, and angels don'thave age. On a football stadium we aregetting to know each other. When Ishow this to my girlfriend, she shiversand cries. It’s gonna be a beautiful film.Then the three of us play. We throw lit-tle stones in our wells (our souls) andlisten to echoes. Later, the crew playsalong. That’s the game of our cinema.(Let the film be poetry. Let the silentengines run the story.)” (Vlado Škafar)

DEKLICA IN DREVO[THE GIRL AND THE TREE]Director, screenplay, editing: VladoŠkafar; cinematography: Marko Brdar;cast: Štefka Drolc, Ivanka Mežan,Helena Koder, Joni; production: FrenkCelarc for Gustav Film; origin: Slove -nia, 2012; format: HD, col.; length: 83’.DCP from Slovenski filmski center.

“... whatever happened to that girl whowanted a bicycle a red one with threewheels; wanted Saint-Nicholas to bringher warm gloves the same as Polonicahas: grey with a white ribbon and bells?Film poem for two souls. Meditationmaybe. A way to silence. “I thought wewere making a film about passing.Now I see we made a film about whatdoes not pass away.” (Vlado Škafar)

Céline Guénot wrote the followingabout the film: “The depth that Škafarcreates with slow fade-outs is the verydepth of existence itself, to whichspeech is trying to hold on. This, thefilm captures miraculously”.

MAMA[MOTHER]Director, screenplay: Vlado Škafar;story: based upon the works of JelenaMaksimović, Vida Rucli, Nataša Tič�Ralijan, Gabriella Ferrari, MargitaStefanović, J. W. Goethe, Lily Novy;cinematography: Marko Brdar; editing:J. Maksimović, V. Škafar; music:Vladimír Godár’s Mater sung by IvaBittová, Ribbon Bow performed byKaren Dalton; cast: Nataša Tič Ralijan,

21

without any importance. His partnersin conversation remain amazingly calmand peaceful, even as they are sayingthe strangest things. As if the directorreally isn’t listening. As if they arestanding dreaming in front of the cam-era.But the maker is not naive. He’s a ded-icated cinephile and knows what filmcan and can’t do. He also knows whathas been made before and realises thatonly absolute modesty and simplicitycan make people forget all those mas-ters who preceded him.” (GjZ)

NOčNI POGOVORI Z MOJCO[THE NIGHT TIME WITH MOJCA] Director, screenplay, editing: VladoŠkafar; cast: Mojca Blažej Cirej; produc-tion: V. Škafar and Petra Vidmar forGustav Film/Otok; origin: Slovenia,2008; format: Super8 and video, col.;length: 36’.Blu-ray from Gustav film.

“With the advent of television, manypeople reckoned that the days of radiowere numbered. What is a voice with-out a face, a laugh without perceptiblegesticulations, music without visibleanimation and so, what little magic wasleft to retain listeners? It is this veryspace that Vlado Škafar has chosen toportray in his film made with the aid ofbasic materials. The pictures: shots oflandscapes, cities, all very ordinary, ofSlovenia. The sound: the kind of nightbroadcast where listeners are invited tointervene by way of a game: they phonein, ask for advice, complain, chat or try

to flirt with the female presenter whoremains invisible to the bitter end.What is heard and what is seen — andthat is the whole point of the film — donot match. Neither is out of frame ofthe other. Because the views are withwide angle lens and are thereforebroadly general. As for the sound, it isin close-up, mouth and ear wide openand so near each other as to emphasizethe radiant and serene character of aface and a body fantasized through thetone of a female voice, a youngmadonna, all-embracing in her benevo-lence. What about the out of framethen? Well, it is made up precisely of allthese anonymous invisible existencesvaguely perceived in the frame of thelens and fragments of autobiography inthe sound. Monochrome colours verg-ing on grey point to a gloomy despairaccentuated by the telephone filter.Could it be that Mojca is the self-portraitin sound of a country?” (Jean-PierreRehm)

OčA[DAD]Director, screenplay: Vlado Škafar; cin-ematography: Marko Brdar; editing: V.Škafar, Jurij Moškon; cast: Miki Roš(Miki), Sandi Šalamon (Sandi), theworkers of the Mura factory; narrators:Hana Šavel, Jože Brunec; production:Frenk Celarc for Gustav Film/PropelerFilm; origin: Slovenia/Croatia, 2010;format: 35mm; col.; length: 71’.35mm from Slovenski filmski center.

“Miki, local coproducer, takes us over

20

From the film Oča

23

Vida Rucli, Gabriella Ferrari, PierluigiDi Piazza; production: GustavFilm/PRO.BA/ARCH Production/TRANSMEDIA; origin: Slovenia/Italy/Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2016; format: HD,col.; length: 93’.DCP from Slovenski filmski center.

The long journey of the Mother hasbeen characterised by two words: painand beauty. These everyday, but never-theless powerful words have appearedand resounded at every step: in the firstimages, materialising from nothing -from the word ‘mother’ itself; duringmeetings with the cast - the first contactbecame painful and beautiful, as pain,when not avoided and when enoughroom opens up in front of it, alwaysbecomes beauty. During the first strollby the mountain creek, one of our castmembers, Gabriella, uttered the wordsthat described our journey exquisitely:‘There is too much suffering aroundsuffering. Suffering needs beauty.’ Mother takes her self-destructivedaughter to a deserted village in a for-eign country (Italy) and locks her in ahouse in the middle of nowhere. Whatbegins as a mother’s desperate attemptto save her child turns into an increas-ingly miraculous spiritual adventure,restoring the deep feelings of life with-in her. Inspired by the writings ofMarcel Proust, the film is not so mucha study of a relationship betweenmother and daughter: it is a poem oftwo human souls.

“In the beginning, the only thing I hadwas the title of the film. After a while,the opening image of the film started

to take shape — the mother and thedaughter driving in the car, the daugh-ter not sitting in the front seat becauseshe would really want to. The feelinggrew into a film. After a while, I real-ized it was not a film anymore; it wastranscending its medium into paintingand poetry, which are very close to me,too. Now, all of my previous films —not just Dad and Letters to a Child, butall of the rest, too, are like tiny streams,all flowing together into Mother. It feelsgood, though I hadn’t planned it thatway.For me, art is just dialogue, but in itspurest form. It is always a conversation,and it is most efficient when it’s notplain.Telling something straight up can neverhave the same effect as reading apoem.I think this film is a lesson in making anindirect conversation. Not only betweenthe characters, but with the viewers,too. As a spectator, you’re always pro-jecting. Many of the great directors —from Kieslowski to Kiarostami — havesaid that the only film that truly exists isthe one in the spectator’s mind.Cinema has no truth of its own. It can’thave it. It only exists in the mind of theperson watching it. Even if as a direc-tor, I don’t see my film again, in a way,it doesn’t exist for me anymore. I haveto see it in order to have a conversationwith it, to make it real. Films live in usin our own ways, and it’s the only waythat’s real — but it doesn’t mean wecan’t talk about them with each other.”

Vlado Škafar, IndieWire, February 2015

22

HAIKU CIRCLESJoni Zakonjšek’s works in paper formatvideo haiku by Vlado ŠkafarDoubleRoom arti visive, Trieste September 17 > October 26 2016

In the balance between cinema andvideo art, the 8 “haiku video” of VladoŠkafar are part of the coherent artisticand spiritual association with thepainter Joni Zakonjšek who presentsabout forty delicate watercolors onpaper format which preserves theextreme essentiality of the knownJapanese poetic writing, contained inthe classic three verse, and the interestin the accurate description of thenature and the events directly linked toit.Both Slovenian authors, partners in real

Vlado Škafar’s Haiku and Joni Zakonjšek’s water-colors on paper format from the book Krogi,Kinetik, zavod za razvi janje vizualne kulture,Ljubljana, 2015

life and in art, have already worked onthis topic printing the valuable artistbook Krogi [Circles] in 2015, a refinedpublication in Slovenian, Japanese andEnglish where the forty haikus writtenby the director equal the same numberof works on paper format owned bythe painter divided according to thenatural cycle of the seasons. (MassimoPremuda, chairman of Casa dell’ArteTrieste)

SE ŠE SPOMINJAŠ LJUBEZNI? [Do you still remember love?] by Joni Zakonjšek

Koštabona, spring 2007 - Velika sela,summer 2010moment after moment on canvas190x278 cmTeatro Miela, 16>22 september 2016

Joni Zakonjšek and the painting Se šespominjaš ljubezni? had a long andintense connection which lasted morethan three years. The work and theartist grew up together. The paintingdepicts the sea, dark, but colored,calm, but not flat. The water levelincreases continuously , the soft wavescome from a distance and set thetempo of the movement. This is the seathat Joni loves, called out by her moth-er in the Mama, that sea means free-dom. Joni’s paintings are vivacious and theylove life. They pulsate from theirembryonic phase and they direct thehand that paint them. Their vitalitydoes not remain contained inside theperimeter of the canvas. On the con-

trary it multiplies and acts through theeyes of the members of the audiencewho absorb their warmth, their color,their spirit and their atmosphere andchange them... into dreams, meditation,love and new lives. (m.l.)

JONI ZAKONJŠEK(Koper, 1974)After finishing high school she lived inLondon for two years, where she com-pleted the Foundation course of Art atthe Whitechapel Art School. In 2003,she graduated from the Academy ofFine Arts in Ljubljana. Since 2004, shehas been working as an independentartist. After a decade of silent resi-dences in the old villages in the Littoralregion, she now lives in Bela krajina,Slovenia, merging painting and zenbuddhist practice in the lived beauty ofbeing. Since 2002 she has held a num-ber of solo exibitions at some of themost notable exibition venues and par-ticipated in numerous national andinternational group shows. She hasreceived several awards in recognitionof her work.

24 25

Beloved and RejectedMigrants, refugees, victims

of wars, escape beyond walls andfences in Adenauer’s era Germany

ALIEN US IN A RUINSCAPEby Olaf Möller

It’s quite curious and maybe rathertelling about many things BerlinRepublic, its relation to the nation’s past,that in recent discussions about refugeesand immigration the situation in occu-pied Germany was rarely mentioned.Let’s do something the Berlin Republic israther averse to: let’s remember.Between mid-1945 and roughly 1955,several million people deemed Germanswere forced to leave their native soilsand move away — which usuallymeant: into the territory deemed theirhome which means: what was left of theGerman Reich and would soon developinto two separate states, the FederalRepublic of Germany and the GermanDemocratic Republic. Why these strangeways of phrasing the problem? For thevery simple reason that it’s difficult tocall many of those who back then wentto - the territory that would soonbecome - the FRG Germans; they spokeGerman often as their first language,and they might look to Goethe as theepitome of a great writer, but they were,in fact, eg. Czechs. Or, to make thingseven more complicated: They mightspeak a language that is partly German,belong to a culture all its own, but wereconsidered for political reasonsGermans, like the Masurians in nowa-days Poland; the cultural landscape inthe countries situated along the BalticSea, the territory that stretches fromtoday’s FRG via Poland, Lithuania,Latvia, Estonia till Russia was multi-cul-tural and -ethnical; many of the region’speople didn’t fit snuggly into the con-

cept of a nation state: one country, onepeople — Masurians, to stay with thisexample, are neither Poles norGermans, they are what they are, butthat mattered ever less; to make things“work” inside the nation state parame-ters, Masurians were suddenly consid-ered Germans — it was mainly a ques-tion of numbers, fights over power; andwhen WW2 was over, the Masurianswere forced out of Poland — if they did-n’t renounce their heritage and turnedPoles, polemically put. These people,now, moved by the millions into first theoccupied territory, later the FRG; theywere strangers in this new nation calledFRG. The main difference between themand the Syrians who fled the war backhome by the millions is that they wereofficially considered “locals”, people ofthe same culture therefore nation —which they weren’t.Yet another group of strangers were theso-called “late returnees”: the prisonersof war who got released from penalservitude and came back to the placethey left sometimes a decade or moreago — only to find out that it now wasfound in a country that didn’t exist backthen, and whose mores and mannerswere unbeknownst to them; peoplemight welcome them back and commis-erate with their suffering, what theycould imagine of it — but did they real-ly ever come home? Cinema certainly knew all this. In fact,one way of describing the most impor-tant genre for the early Bonn Republic:the Heimatfilm, is as an attempt to dealwith this situation. What does Heimatmean — is it fatherland?, or native soil?,or cultural roots?, or a mix of all these,

26

or something else entirely? Is it a territo-rial entity or is it more a state of mind?Is Heimat something you can take withyou? Can another place become Heimat?In contrast to the way the genre is com-monly described, the Heimatfilm was, atleast in its early stages, not a genre ofharmony and merriment where in theeternal woods, meadows, heathers,bogs and dunes people’s eyes and earsand therewith souls found maybe a bitof peace, or at least some respite fromthe rigours of building up an industrialsuper power from rubbles — theHeimatfilm was a battle ground wherethe fundamental problems of themoment who are we in the world, andwhere exactly — and who exactly arewe anyway? One should remember thatthe Heimatfilm is deeply rooted in anativist literature whose roots can betraced back to the early stages of indus-trialisation — narratives remembering(often sentimentally) a way of life lost;this genre itself was politically alreadydiverse: conservative-going-reactionaryminds like that of Ludwig Ganghoferused its motives and topoi, and so did aliberal, anticlerical popular educator likeLudwig Anzengruber (the latter beingAustrian). Both Ganghofer’s andAnzengruber’s novels had been filmedoften enough before 1945 to constitutealmost something like a genre of theirown. The Heimatfilm added quite a fewto the vast already existing numbers.And while these (as well as the massesof films based on other sources if notjust a screenwriter’s fantasy alone)resemble the earlier works in manyways, something fundamental haschanged: the idea of Heimat had gotten

tarnished, soiled, poisoned — Germanywasn’t anything one could easily feel atease with. And in the midst of those sto-ries about people trying hard to pretendthat things were as they always hadbeen, all the while looking suspiciouslytense, costumed, as if wearing a corsetmore spiritual than physical -; in theseeerily undestroyed landscapes wheremen usually still had all their limbs -; ina society where men often were middle-aged and women young (a reality ofthose times: the young men were all toooften either dead or in POW camps,which meant that women had to makedo with men who in more than a fewcases could easily have been theirfathers, age-wise) -; here, in these films,in these narratives as well as in anygiven audience of these films, the mil-lions of refugees with their very ownneuroses’ and traumata had to find aspace for themselves. Just like the for-mer soldiers who came— not back, butinto a country they tried to make theirown, just like the refugees and themany, many others those lives defy suchfacile labelling, all those aliens thatwould make my home — a Heimat lostin November 1989 ...

HERZ DER WELT

Director: Harald Braun; screenplay: H.Braun, Herbert Witt; cinematography:Richard Angst; editing: Claus von Boro;music: Werner Eisbrenner; cast: HildeKrahl, Dieter Borsche, Werner Hinz,Mathias Wieman, Dorothea Wieck, PaulBildt; production: NDF; origin: RFT,1952; format: 35mm, b/n; length: 91’.

27

of it. […] As you can see, echoes of beg-ging “neorealism” mix to smooth sym-bolism (a lot of “plastic material” : thetrain, the black glasses, the mirror etc.),with the medium director’s Sternbergstyle transcription between his actorand a superhuman ideal of beauty. TheSternberg’s formula is adapted to therhetoric of the times. With a bit of intel-ligence, the result is not dissimilar to the“aesthetic” province of the variousPandora and Contessa scalza.”Giuseppe Turroni, Quando mi sei vicino,

«Filmcritica», n. 49, June 1955

SUCHKIND 312Director: Gustav Machatý; story: fromthe novel by Ulrich Horster; screenplay:Werner P. Zibaso, G. Machatý; cine-matography: Otto Baecker; editing:Herbert Taschner; music: BernardEichhorn; cast: Inge Egger, Paul Klinger,Ingrid Slimon, Heli Finkenzeller,Alexander Kerst; production: UnicornFilm; origin: RFT, 1955; format: 35mm,b/n; length: 95’.35mm from DIF, for providing Beta Film.

“In one of the numerous German recentfilms that deal with a highly relevantissue with almost a moving lack ofcommitment, there an extraordinaryscene: it probably lasted one minute, itdid not comply with the general styleof the film, but it had such a visualstrength and a symbolic synthesispower which were no longer present ina German film for a least two decades.A little girl flees from a school by nightthrough long corridors, then down

gloomy stairs and a phantasmagoricalgarden, collapsing in the street andscreaming under a poster ripped by thewind that rebukes death caused byroad accidents. A skeleton trying toinflate can be seen on the that post.The latent fear of modern man in con-stant danger, due to the mechanizationof the world of things, and an atmos-phere which seemed to have disap-peared since the great era of theGerman silent film are united here in aunique symbolic framework, in thesefew framings where moreover editingwas harmed by commercial cuts. Thedirector of this film, Si ricerca il bambi-no n. 312, is Gustav Machatý. Readingthis name in the opening credits, prob-ably very few viewers will connect himimmediately to some of the fundamen-tal leading European cinematographicworks more than a quarter of a centu-ry ago : Erotikon, Dal sabato alla do -menica, and especially Estasi [...]. Sixyears ago, Machatý went back toGermany full of ideas, full of plans andnew projects. But apart from some veryrare exceptions, the Western Germanypostwar cinema has literally become a“dream factory” producing sleepingpills for the viewer. Machatý wasentrusted with writing the scenario ofAvvenne il 20 luglio film, shot by G.W.Pabst. Even this time he was verylucky. Finally, recently a productioncompany entrusted him with takingcare of the scenario and the directionof the film Si ricerca il bambino n. 312,drawn from a very successful serialnovel published in periodicals. Thesubject such that it would attract a classdirector: homeless children lost and

2928

production: NDF; origin: RFT, 1953; for-mat: 35mm, b/n; length: 103’.35mm from Deutsche Kinemathek, forproviding Beta Film.

“A “neo-realist” film inside a flaccidlyteutonic film with many symbolicclaims. Is there a connexion? Not achance! Not even in the painful dreamof the little Eva, the tender and defense-less heroine of both films. The “neo-realist” film (be careful about the quota-tion marks), that the devilish directorTornau, a topsy-turvy Sternberg, isshooting about the real life of an extrais the rehash of the most ordinary andindigestible chronicling: a film shot“from the reality as it stands” [...]. Theother film, the non neo-realist one, isfocused on the psychological tragedy ofa fragile woman, Eva Berger, the extracalled upon to relive her ordinary sadstory in a film: a creature that canvibrate with sincere emotions thanks toMaria Schell’s exquisite and very sensi-tive art full of abandonments and ado-lescent tremors, although it knew aboutcomics and literature recently. SimplySatanic, Tornau, with carbon blackglasses and dressing like a dandy (herethese guys demand to be called Dr.even there are not) push everyday Evato suffer again awfully when playingher own role, with calculated sadism:Eva suffers, declines and endures, goingaway crying, she has nightmares – shefinally falls in love with her captor. Sheis about to repeat the first mistake madeto the detriment of her young husband,because this difficult and troubleddream. The director demands her torepeat it: cinema should take advantage

35mm from NDF, for providing BetaFilm.

“Austria went [to Cannes] with only onefeature film directed by WolfgangLeibeneiner: Der Weibsteufel (ThePossessed Woman). The protagonist isHilde Krahl, also present in anotherGerman film at the Fetsival, Herz derWelt. She really deserved to be givenan award for the feminine interpreta-tion. Nevertheless this Austrian filmremains very huge popular dramaticstory, even though it provides verysharp descriptions and a magic pictureof the Tyrol […]. Harald Braun andHerbert Witt’s pretentious Herz der Welt(The Heart of the World) did not evensurvive to the mediocrity, although it isdetermined to show us the efforts of thevery peaceable Berta von Suttner in awarmongering and militaristic Europe.The fact that Germany wants to appearas a pacifist country with such films maysound fake to people who are used tothe rumbles of war. Besides, the film isconstructed in the usual boring, slowand muddled way which are typical ofall dignified German historical films.”Alfredo Di Laura, Panorama, «Filmcritica»,

n. 14, May-June 1952

SOLANGE DU DA BISTWHEN YOU ARE NEAR MEDirector: Harald Braun; screenplay: Jo -chen Huth; cinematography: HelmutAshley; editing: Claus von Boro; music:Werner Eisbrenner; cast: Maria Schell,O.W. Fischer, Hardy Krüger, BrigitteHorney, Mathias Wieman, Paul Bildt;

expanded story of a traitor (SiegfriedLowitz) delivers the pole opposing thatof the doctor’s dedication. The end isquite astonishing: there is no rewardawaiting the returnee, instead – whileparades go on outside again – over-come by visions of horror, his stunnedface in close-up is superimposed over acalamitous staccato montage ofadvanced military progress.”Christoph Huber, The Simmel Complex, inClaudia Dillmann, Olaf Möller (edited by),

Beloved and Rejected: Cinema in the YoungFederal Republic of Germany

from 1949 to 1963, Deutsches Filminstitut, Frankfurt am Main, 2016

NACHT FIEL ÜBER GOTENHAFENDirector: Frank Wisbar; screenplay: F.Wisbar, Victor Schüller; cinematogra-phy: Elio Carniel, Willy Winterstein;editing: Martha Dübber; music: Hans-Martin Majewski; cast: Sonja Ziemann,Gunnar Möller, Erik Schumann, BrigitteHorney, Mady Rahl, Wolfgang Preiss;production: Deutsche Film Hansa; ori-gin: RFT, 1960; format: 35mm, b/n;length: 99’.35mm from DIF, for providing BetaFilm.

“Wisbar shot Haie und Kleine Fische(frg 1957, Sharks and Small Fish), thefirst of three very successful films aboutthe Second World War. Unerringly hedeals with traumatic issues which attract-ed particular interest in the post-warperiod: the fate of submariners in haieund kleine fische, pointless sacrifice inHitler’s unscrupulous warfare in theStalingrad drama Hunde, Wollt Ihr Ewig

Leben (frg 1958/59, Dogs, Do You Wantto Live Forever?), and the plight of dis-placed persons in the escape dramanacht fiel über gotenhafen (FRG1959/60, Darkness Fell on Gotenhafen).A specific ‘style of dynamicallydesigned, documentary reporting’.which goes far beyond the incorpora-tion of newsreel material within fiction-al plots is used in all three films. Theseriously wounded men in hunde, wolltihr ewig leben hear the originalThermopylae speech delivered byGöring, and when the Gestapo comesfor the Jewish hostess and her frailfather in full view of the impassive pro-tagonists in nacht fiel über gotenhafen,the reality of the Holocaust intrudes intothe victimhood perspective of theexpulsion discourse and exposes itspredisposition to a navel-gazing histori-cal amnesia. In doing so, Wisbaraccepts aesthetic collisions and – con-trary to what is often claimed by critics– makes little attempt to embed thedocumentary sequences into the fiction-al sequences.”

Fabian Schmidt, Person Unknown, inClaudia Dillmann, Olaf Möller (edited by),

Beloved and Rejected: Cinema in the YoungFederal Republic of Germany

from 1949 to 1963, cit.

DURCHBRUCH LOK 234Director: Frank Wisbar; screenplay:Gerhard T. Buchholz; cinematography:Bert Meister; music: Bernard Adamkevitz,Peter Laurin; cast: Erik Schumann, MariaKörber, Helmut Oeser, Hans Paetsch,Herbert Fleischmann, Katha rina Mayberg;production: Profil-Film; origin: RFT,

taken away by strangers; children whowait in vain for their dad and theirmom; they are admitted to nurseriesand treated well, healthy but withoutaffection, reduced to numbers writtenin a file. It would have become a filmlike Géza Radványi’s È accaduto inEuropa, the ballad of a destiny experi-enced without fault and an accusationagainst the policies of the adults,responsible for the repressed souls ofthese children. But all this, in the “forgeof evasion” that Germany was in 1956,it would have been too realistic. So theproblem had to be inserted in one ofthe usual obliged triangular maritalconflicts and was submerged by the socommon lachrymatory rhetoric of theexisting German cinema.”

Ulrich Seelman-Eggebert, Quando suonerà il telefono bianco per Gustav

Machaty?, «Film», n. 9, 1955

DER ARZT VON STALINGRADDirector: Radványi Géza; story: from thenovel by Heinz G. Konsalik; screenplay:Werner P. Zibaso; cinematography:Georg Krause; editing: René Le Hénaff;music: Siegfried Franz; cast: O.E. Hasse,Eva Bartok, Hannes Messemer, MarioAdorf, Walther Reyer, Vera Tschechowa;production: Walter Traut for Divina-Film; origin: RFT, 1958; format: 35mm,b/n; length: 110’.35mm from Goethe-Institut, for provid-ing Beta Film.

“One week before the German pre-miere of himmel ohne sterne, theReturn Home of the Ten Thousand, that

is, the last pows from the Soviet Union,which had been finalised duringAdenauer’s visit to Moscow, began. Thelast page of Konsalik’s Der Arzt vonStalingrad invokes it as an incredibleevent, the film version puts it at thebeginning for the maximum audienceeffect, even before O. E. Hasse’sAnaesthetic! appearance in the maincredits. Both are united in the secret ofsuccess: portraits of probation, ‘the dutyto be a human being.’ This identity maynot be undermined: “I am not a hero, Iam Fritz Böhler from Würzburg ...’, ishow Hasse’s monologue gets to theheart of Konsalik’s reassuring effect. […]It becomes quite schizophrenic whenhe portrays the Soviets: sub-humanbeasts with a longing to ‘drink Germanblood’; but finding in the Easternessence a friendly disposition, when itreally comes down to it. The most juicyis the perverse relationship between theRussian ‘thoroughbred mare’ doctor andher German colleagues, including rapeand attempted suicide – a completelyinextricable sado-masochistic complexas the apotheosis of Konsalik’s unques-tioned furious frenzy in which no stylis-tic howler is too much. Géza vonRadvanyi’s film version is immeasurablybetter composed, for he had no choice;the kinky German-Soviet-Soviet three-way relationship becomes an accept-able melodrama of death, the secondlove story with a sick, delicate Russianwoman is transferred to the fate of achild – the image of the sick child, con-trapunctally even musically talented aswere so many tragic-sensitive charactersin these 1950s war films, becomes thecentre of the hope for rescue, while the

3130

1963; format: 35mm, b/n; length: 85’.16mm (from 35mm) from Bundes -archiv-Filmarchiv.

“The most revealing films in Wisbar’spost-war work are barbara – wild wiedas meer (frg 1961) and durchbruch lok234 (frg 1963). With Durchbruch Lok234, Wisbar succeeded one last time inprovoking a large press response. Thebiographical parallels to Wisbar’s ownescape can scarcely be overlooked inhis staging of this true escape story fromthe gdr. The narrative motif of voluntaryfree-willed escape with no externalconstraint is one of the idealised biog-raphical aspects of the film. Ironically,however, it is precisely this that con-temporary critics criticised for its dra-matic and above all ideological incon-sistency. It is also interesting that Wisbarallows his hero to triumph without sac-rifice in this film.”

Fabian Schmidt, Person Unknown, inClaudia Dillmann, Olaf Möller (edited by),

Beloved and Rejected..., cit.

PARALLEL CONVERGENCES

OGGI A BERLINODirector: Piero Vivarelli; screenplay: P.Vivarelli, Giuseppe Isani, GoffredoParise; cinematography: Gianni Narzisi;editing: Nino Baragli; music: ArmandoTrovajoli; cast: Helmut Griem, NanaOsten, Erina Torelli, Vittorio Pugliese,Enrico De Boccard, Pietro Sharoff,Annalise Wurtz; production: AntonioCervi for Compagnia CinematograficaCervi/Cineriz; origin: Italy, 1962; for-

mat: 35mm, b/n; length: 91’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“The camera of Piero Vivarelli’s Oggi aBerlino (Italy 1962, East Zone, WestZone) skims over West and East Berlinin a charmingly lazy fashion. Clichés areall it captures: neon lights, beautifulwomen, parties, economic opportuni-ties, and ruthless bureaucracy on oneside; ruins and desolation on the other.Either way, just sketchy excuses forpeople: strict soldiers, stubbornly politi-cised parents, shallow libertines, pow-erful lobbies mourning the old regime,a catatonic girlfriend … Hans is the onlyone Vivarelli cares about. A young,smart and carefree hedonist constantlyhopping around in a jeanclaudebria-lesque fashion Hans wants pleasureand freedom – but bumps into the Wall.The film, its hero, and even its jazzyscore become more and more bitter asit becomes clear that apolitical Hans hasno choice but to turn into the very polit-ical statement which contradicts hisrefusal to be ideologically pigeonholed.An epitome of young Germany? Surelynot. Of some new-wavish Europeanyouth? Possibly, but even more likelyoggi a berlino is a self-portrait ofVivarelli himself, a filmmaker, writer,journalist, and music industry pioneerwho always lived his picaresque life inthe name of freedom and of a pro-nounced loathing for rigid ideologicalbarriers.”Marco Grosoli, The Professor, The Tourist,and The Bombshell, in Claudia Dillmann,

Olaf Möller (edited by), Beloved and Rejected..., cit.

33

From Compassion to Love

32

UMANITÀDirector: Elvira Giallanella; story: froma story by Vittorio Emanuele Bravet-ta; production: Liana Film; origin:Italy, 1919; format: 35mm, col.; length:35’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“Introduced by a caption which pres-ents him as a ‘humorous-satirical-edu-cational’ work, the film for two youngstars, Tranquillino and Serenetta. During the night the little rise, and asthe girl goes to steal in the jam jar, theboy is dedicated to Dad’s cigarettes.Smoking causes a Tranquillino an anx-ious dream: the world was distruto bya terrible war and to him falls the taskto do it again. Subsequent scenes showTranquillino that traces errors accumu-lated in human history: in fact also dig-ging deep and penetrating into themost remote layers of human history,the boy can not find anything butweapons and signs of conflict ... [...] Based on the novel for children ofVittorio Emanuele Bravetta, in verseand embellished with color illustra-tions of Golia, Umanità is the onlydirector Elvira Giallanella, figure asinteresting as, for the moment, perfect-ly mysterious. [...] The film should have been the first titleof "a vast program of work, whichincludes great films of straw or of his-torical reconstruction and films forchildren, which will be played by chil-dren." But the project seems to havestopped after Giallanella Umanità,unparalleled in contemporary film pro-duction, singular attempt of a woman

to testify and pass through cinema itscommitment against war.”Monica Dall’Asta, Non solo dive. Pioniere

del cinema italiano, Il Profumo delleParole, Bologna, 2007

GLI ULTIMI GIORNI DELL’UMANITÀDirector: Luca Ronconi; story: from theplay by Karl Kraus; traduzione:Ernesto Braun and Mario Carpitella;cinematography: Enzo Ghinassi; edit-ing: Mario Gioia; production of theplay: Teatro Stabile of Torino Lingottosrl; production of the TV version: Rai;origin: Italy, 1990; format: vi deo, col.;length: 162’.Blu-ray (from master video) from RAI.

“Attend this show means to try to themaximum degree the taste of the the-ater. Here you do not look a represen-tation: you visit, or rather, you traverse.As an event, like a procession, ademonstration, an art exhibition. Hereare neither the comfort nor the usualways of traditional theater, the audi-ence here, the stage there. The rest ofthe text itself, fragmented and centrifu-gal, not permit a classic construction. Itworks the river, spreading and mag-matic, where there is no psychology ofthe characters or an organic dramatur-gy. A text on the border between thetragedy and the operetta where war isseen through the eyes of a foolishpress, biased and drunk slogans andbiblical delirium. The Kraus charactersare those same Viennese who lived thewar as an aesthetic fact, “men withoutqualities”, inept and blind soldiers in

35

IL CARNEVALE DI NIZZA DEL 1910 Director and production: Luca Comerio;origin: Italy, 1910; format: 35mm, b/n;length: 6’ (a 16fps).35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

LA FAMIGLIA REALE NELL’INTIMITÀDirector and production: Luca Comerio;origin: Italy, 1911; format: 35mm, b/n;length: 8’.DCP (from 35mm) from CSC-CinetecaNazionale (computerize by La Cinetecadel Friuli).

LA GUERRA ITALO-TURCADirector and production: Luca Comerio;origin: Italy, 1911; format: 35mm, b/n;length: 3’ (a 16fps).35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

[VITA DI ASCARI ERITREI] Director and production: Luca Comerio;origin: Italy, 1912; format: 35mm, b/n;length: 14’ (a 18fps).35mm from AIRSC depositata in CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

LA PRESA DI ZUARADirector and production: Luca Comerio;origin: Italy, 1912; format: 35mm, b/n;length: 23’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

[ESERCITO ITALIANO: PLOTONE NUO-TATORI DI CAVALLERIA] Director and production: Luca Comerio;origin: Italy, 1912; format: 35mm, b/n;length: 15’.35mm from AIRSC in CSC-CinetecaNazionale.

LAGO D’ISEODirector and production: Luca Comerio;origin: Italy, 1913; format: 35mm, b/n;length: 6’.DCP (from 35mm) from CSC-CinetecaNazionale (computerize by La Cinetecadel Friuli).

EXCELSIOR!Director: Luca Comerio; story: by piéceBallo Excelsior by Luigi Manzotti; music:Romualdo Marenco; costumes: Caramba[Luigi Sapelli]; cast: Vittorina Galimberti,Armando Berruccini, Euge nia Villa; pro-duction: Luca Comerio, Lorenzo Sonzo -gno; origin: Italy, 1911; format: 35mm,b/n; length: 18’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“The great Milanese heir to the Lumièrecaptures the image of the most flagrantwars (colonial and world), raids ofdeath and real in a universe of mas-querades and Excelsior dances. TheGuy Debord had known!” (s.g.g.)

34

happened to; a theft arrest (in respectof Rod Steiger stunt, a bodybuilderfrom Udine butcher profession); Lision holiday in Lignano.”

Livio Jacob, Carlo Gaberscek, Il Friuli e il cinema, La Cineteca

del Friuli, Gemona del Friuli, 1996

ZUMADirector: Baldassarre Negroni; story:Augusto Genina; cast: Hesperia,Ignazio Lupi, Leda Gys, Augusto Ma -stripietri, Pina Menichelli, BrunoCastel lani; production: Cines; origin:Italy, 1913; format: 35mm, b/n; length:35’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

From a copy of the film and advertis-ing Cines: “At the village of Colfiorito,a pleasant holiday resort, arrives, forshow, a caravan of nomads, which ispart of a young Sudanese, Zuma, whodistributes the program to the streets.In the evening the big top is crowdedand there are also the Counts Fossi.Behind the scenes, Lucas, the leader ofthe caravan, mistreats Zuma. In thenight, the girl runs away and asks forhelp to the castle of Counts Fossi, thattake as a waitress and dismiss Lucas,he came to claim it, with a sum ofmoney. The generosity of CountessClaudia wins the heart of Zuma. [...] Zuma located in a trunk a portrait ofthe master and takes him to his room.Every night contemplates secretly,finding itself a sentiment hithertounknown: she is in love. And thecount is not insensitive to its beauty.

But Zuma, rather than betray the trustof his benefactor, one evening in thehome of Counts Fossi you give a feast,performs in an exotic dance with asnake, making the end bite from dan-gerous reptile. The recognition of theslave sacrifices the love of women.”

SCIPIONE L’AFRICANODirector: Carmine Gallone; screenplay:C. Gallone, Camillo MarianiDell’Anguillara, Sebastiano A. Luciani;cinematography: Ubaldo Arata,Anchise Brizzi; music: IldebrandoPizzetti; editing: Osvaldo Hafenrichter;cast: Annibale Ninchi, Carlo Lombardi,Carlo Ninchi, Diana Lante, CamilloPilotto, Fosco Giachetti, FrancescaBraggiotti, Isa Miranda, Memo Benassi;production: Consorzio Scipione/ENIC;origin: Italy, 1937; format: 35mm, b/n;length: 117’. 35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“Through the ‘giant’ directed by Gallo -ne [...] they wanted to openly celebratethe glories of two empires, two civi-lizations, two achievements: theancient and the new Rome. The onewanted to compare doing so arrangedthat the success will reverberate on theother. He wanted, in particular, cele-brate the titanic personalities of twocommanders, Scipio and Mussolini,who in two different periods andimmeasurably distant, had performed asimilar feat. [...] The project of a scalenever seen the film started out after thevictorious African company thatallowed fascism to show up in the

3736

35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“Venzone, the medieval citadel inwhich were built the most importantscenes of Addio alle armi and theGrande guerra, it was completelydestroyed by the earthquake of 6 Mayand 15 September 1976. The town, now rebuilt almost the sameas before the disaster, with its historicalarchitectures that both fascinatedDavid O. Selznick, John Huston, MarioMoni celli and Dino De Laurentiis, hadbecome a sort of permanent sound-stage, an ideal place to set films relat-ed to the first World war. In fact it wasused by the cinema twice more, andby the same director, Pasquale FestaCampanile, who headed La ragazzae il generale in 1966 and Porca vacca!in 1982 (a remake of the distantMonicelli’s film, whose working titlewas indeed the Grande guerra, piccoliuomini). For the latter film was the rubble afterthe earthquake as a backdrop to thetragicomic story of the film. La ragaz-za e il generale, a co-productionbetween Italy and France designed byCarlo Ponti, was shot in late June andearly July of 1966 in various locationsof Friuli (Venzone, Val Resia, Pissebus– between Amaro and Tolmezzo –,Pertegada, Palazzolo dello Stella,Cividale, Latisana), on the Carso, nearPese, and in Val Rosandra, on theplateau of Trieste. [...] The shooting of the film La ragazza eil generale were surrounded by a num-ber of side events: a warplane thatcrashes to the ground, an accident

evening dress, dandies in helmet andrifle. Kraus himself, who is not grantedor in Max Reinhardt nor Erwin Piscatorauthorization to represent him,claimed the improbability stage of histext because of the inordinate length:156 hours of representation in about10 days. An impossible task. I madethe cuts by reducing the material ofone third. And I have broken the unityof action and time. They came out“only” 18 hours of spectacle that thesimultaneity of the various paintings,allows to make in three hours. Theviewer who will be at the center, walk-ing among the various flaps stage, willbe from time to time on the Isonzo oron the front of Galicia, at the bedsideof injured soldiers or Greinsteidl cof-fee, beloved by the Viennese intellec-tuals, in a square vociferous of news-boys or drafts of a partisan newspa-per.”

Luca Ronconi, «Grazia», November 29, 1990

LA RAGAZZA E IL GENERALE

Director: Pasquale Festa Campanile;story: P. F. Campanile, Massimo Fran -ciosa; screenplay: P. F. Campanile,Luigi Malerba; cinematography: EnnioGuar nieri; music: Ennio Morricone;editing: Jolanda Benvenuti; cast: RodSteiger, Virna Lisi, Umberto Orsini,Marco Mariani, Jacques Herlin, Valenti -no Macchi; production: Carlo Ponti forCompagnia Cinematografica Champion/Les Films Concordia; origin: Italy/Fran -ce, 1967; format: 35mm, col; length:103’.

a misfortune could touch even one dayin Rome’ (277). [...] If you want to make a film about theunfortunate defenders of Carthage,they are at least spared the Romansthe gratuitous accusations of ... eatersof raw meat and quarrymen of eyes!Not only because of the love of home-land, but also in view of the fact thatthe film (which will be the French-Italian co-production) seems destinedfor wide dissemination on foreigncircuits (including the British andAmerican).”

PARALLEL CONVERGENCES

A MODERN HERO

Director: Georg Wilhelm Pabst; story:novel by Louis Bromfield; screenplay:Gene Markey, Kathryn Scola; cinema -tography: William Rees; editing: JamesGibbon; cast: Richard Barthelmess,Jean Muir, Marjorie Rambeau, VerreeTeasdale, Florence Eldridge, DorothyBurgess; production: Warner Bros.; ori-gin: USA, 1934; format: 35mm, b/n;length: 71’.16mm (from 35mm) from La Cinetecadel Friuli (Fondo GEH).

“A Modern Hero was a project worthyof the Pabst talent, and one can rea-sonably assume that the script interest-ed him. It is the story of an Americanindustrialist who builds his fortunefrom a proletarian circus coming to thespheres of high finance. Contrary tothe Horatio Alger myth that the capi-talist empire comes from hard work

and honesty effort, the modern imag-ined by Bromfield hero reaches thewell-being ruthlessly applying the prin-ciples of profit against its own mem-bers and sexually exploiting womenwho finance his rise to fame. Althoughthe novel contains on the one hand ananti-intellectual, and other anti-Semiticcoloring approach, social and psycho-sexual elements of the story were cer-tainly attract Pabst. It was exactly thekind of story that has always fascinat-ed transplanted European artists inAmerica, as is also evident fromEisenstein's project dedicated to Sutterdeveloped a few years earlier forParamount. Warner Bros., however,was not about to let Pabst alter thescript. [...] In terms of style, A Modern Hero isquite different from European Pabstfilm. The most remarkable feature isthe extreme precision of the assembly,which combines the typical cut onmovement developed by the directorwith the cutting rhythm quicker,instead of Warner characteristic style,perfected in the gangster movies of theearly 30s. Pabst is thus able to connectthe many spatial and temporal ellipses,creating a continuity through themovement. [...] In the years of the Hollywood canonstyle 30’s, the pace is acceleratedthrough the constant use of the firstfloor and listening to the stories, whichPabst instead uses less frequently in itsEuropean works. The first floor, ofcourse, highlights the empathy of theviewer, structuring the subject's eyes.Paradoxically, compared to the usualHollywood technique, the use of the

39

international concert as a new imperialpower. [...] With these negative conditions, theyresulted in corruption of the ‘values’that the character of Scipio had totransmit the screen. So, apart from theartistic result modest interpretation ofthe protagonist, they are weakened,and sometimes even ridiculed, the fun-damental moments, the symbolic char-acters and the constant allusions to thisstory that the work of Gallone wasintended to represent. The propagandaeffect of the whole costly operationthat led to the making of the film, iscompromised departing.”

Pasquale Iaccio, Scipione l’Africano, unkolossal dell’epoca fascista, in P. Iaccio

(edited by), Non solo Scipione. Il cinemadi Carmine Gallone, Liguori, Naples, 2003

CARTAGINE IN FIAMME

Director: Carmine Gallone; story: fromthe novel by Emilio Salgari; screenplay:C. Gallone, Ennio De Concini, DuccioTessari; cinematography: PieroPortalupi; music: Mario Nascimbene;editing: Nicolò Lazzari; cast: PierreBrasseur, Daniel Gélin, Anne Heywood,Ilaria Occhini, Paolo Stoppa, JoséSuarez, Erno Crisa, Camillo Pilotto; pro-duction: Lux/Produzione Gallone/ LuxC.C.; origin: Italy, 1959; format: 35mm,col.; length: 110’.35mm from La Cineteca del Friuli(Fondo Hunsrück).

From preventive film Revision (April1959): “The script is taken from thenovel Cartagine in fiamme by E.Salgari. The story has for men and

women protagonists of Carthage, at thetime of the siege of Carthage (Scipio,the year 146 BC) ended with thedestruction of the city (of Cato“Delenda Carthago”). Between the dif-ferent actors Carthaginian figure ayoung Roman girl (Fulvia), happenedin Carthage no one knows how, whichmadly in love a native hero and yougive a great deal to do to save him,highly Roman citizens never mind thatthey are, instead, besieging the city. Ifyou take away the environment andoutdoor climate: the siege of theRoman legions, the film could becalled Sandokan to the rescue orRevenge of Tuggs (et similia), whichwould be the same. The affair, whichhas as protagonists a Phoenician patri-ot, escaped, the high priest, the headof the holy guards, Hasdrubal andother types Carthaginians (beyond theaforesaid Roman Fulvia), develops inthe interior of Carthage against theRoman siege. The Romans, that is, arethe enemies. They are ‘the stupidstrength ... You people used to eat rawmeat’ (p. 10). ‘Damn the Romans. Bothof his eyes were raised to Sarim’ (p.209). They are killing and ‘fill theditches with corpses and wounded’ (p.198). They ‘ignore every promise andevery covenant’ (p. 200). Romantroops are in the script, always referredto as ‘hordes’ (225, 226). The Scipio isseen twice. The first says: ‘I’d ratherdeal with Hannibal on the fields isZama, like my uncle, rather than hav-ing to destroy Carthage’ (130). The sec-ond time, Scipio is crying like a littlewoman while Carthage burns. ‘Whyare you crying Scipio?’. ‘I think so great

38

first floor privileges in this film thefemale gaze toward Paul, without find-ing a reciprocity in desire of the pro-tagonist. In almost all of his relation-ships with women, Paul does notreflect their desire (and also that of thepublic), because the character showsitself incapable of loving women. Thismeans that Pabst creates an apparentlystyle faithful to the classical language,but at the same time it subverts theconventions, denying the ability toempathize with the protagonist.

Jan-Christopher Horak, G.W. Pabst inHollywood or Every Modern Hero Deserves

a Mother, «Film History», n. 1, 1987

40 41

Bodies and Places

Cinema of Poetry, from Friuli to Sicily

43

TRIBUTE TO MICHELE MANCINI

with the participation of Jobst Grapow,Benedikt Reichenbach, Cristina Cristini,Sergio M. Grmek GermaniWe are preparing a new English edition ofone of the most indispensable film bookspublished in Italy, Pier Paolo Pasolini: cor -pi e luoghi (Theorema, Rome 1981), editedby Michele Mancini and Giuseppe Perrella.To Michael this festival has dedicated a trib-ute after death (which is perhaps more“premature” but in this case it was particu-larly violence), in the presence of someclose people who meet again on this occa-sion, and to which you will add the pro-moter of the new edition. Reichenbachand Grapow are legitimately that it alsobecomes the first stage of a book-tribute toMichael.

THE UNCERTAINTY OF PASSION

• Presentation of the collection of writingson film by Paolo Gobetti, published as aspecial issue of the magazine he founded«Il nuovo spettatore», by Archivio NazionaleCinematografico della Resistenza [NationalFilm Archive of the Resistance] in Turin, forKaplan editions, Turin 2016, with the par-ticipation of Paola OlivettiLast year we opened the festival with thedouble program coming from the ANCRfounded by Paolo Gobetti, Il Duce a Triesteand the beautiful interview by Gobetti withthe anarchist of Trieste Umberto Tomma -sini; We also screened the film dedicated tohis father Piero Gobetti. It was not a firstbut still inaugural collaboration with theANCR, of which we present this year thevolume devoted to the founder, projectingexcerpts from interviews that at varioustimes the archive created with him.• Presentation of the book Memorie di uncinefilo by Nereo Battello, published byPremio Amidei of which he is president,,Gorizia 2016, with the participation of theauthor, and in collaboration with the ANAC

Another volume of a person active in thecivil sector, but whose passion for cinemahas traveled all his life. As with PaoloGobetti, they can divide us several choicesof what you love (or loathe) in the cinema,but endures differences in estimates whencomparing individuals with the uncertaintyof all passion without which it would bewrong first.

THE INVENTION OF REALITY

• Presentation of the book Invention duréel. Trois contes by Marc Scialom, illustra-tions Mélik Ouzani, ed. Artdigiland, 2016,with the participation of the author viaSkypeMarc Scialom, Premio Anno uno and in var-ious guest of the festival editions (the lastyear with a conversation via Skype to pres-ent the previous volume by the same pub-lisher, thanks to the faithful love of SilviaTarquini), the author is back with us albeitat distance. And back in this new volume aclose associate of the first films of Marc'sfriend Ouzani artist. As in all things thatMarc has created, movies or books, andthis time since the clear statement of thetitle, it reaffirms the Dantesque poetic ofreality intertwined with his invention. • With a memory of Tommaso LabrancaShort, instant memory of a writer whoseimmediately, while too short collaborationwith the «Film TV», hit us the ability to gobeyond fashions and writing pens (such asmanaging the downside of trash: a termthat only he could make a new vitality).They will be addressed at another time hisbooks such as the one dedicated to Il vedo-vo by Dino Risi. But we could not fail toremember the death of someone who,increasingly at the margins of communica-tion powers, reminds us that the sublimestatement in Nina di Minnelli («the worldworships the original») was not reconciledwith the present.

42

umes of poetry of Angeli, and withGiorgio Caproni among the first admir-ers of Angeli poet), Guglielmo Petroniand other. Cottafavi was also afterWorld War II, creator of an importantalbeit short-lived publishing company,Migliaresi.La Cineteca therefore considers that itshould give organic form to the redis-covery of figures, care to these places,to be seen finally as European person-alities.The maintenance of the film historianand critic Sergio M. Grmek Germani,and provided there is increasinginvolvement of scholars far more atten-tive to the importance of Angeli and ofthe writer’s heirs, the Cineteca del Friuliformed in 2013 the Fondo Siro Angeli,which it launched a collection ofbooks, magazines, paper documents,films and videos about the activities ofSiro Angeli and personalities who inter-bred with his work, like the ones men-tioned, to which are added other direc-tors of which he was screenwriter, andother characters with whom he met inhis RAI executive activities (includingGuido Botteri, who supported the cre-ation of Maria Zef as a first feature ofthe Third Network fiction).In the belief that, despite the gap thatsometimes Angeli has shown towardshis work as a screenwriter, the film maybe, as is his nature, a catalyst for awider artistic dimension, the Fondowants to bring together documents andtexts of the entire work of Angeli, with-out thereby substitute for otherlibraries, but proposing, however, theaim of the widest possible collection,such as tool use and study, and as a

stimulus to the creation of additionalinitiatives (festivals with screenings,tributes and television on DVD) todevote to a creative personality to berediscovered in its entirety. Are alsoadvocated new publishing initiativesbeyond the regional dimension andbeyond the only Friulian canons, togive the status of Angeli great writerthat the stories of Italian literature andanthologies (with the sample, andalmost unique for perseverance, atten-tion Giacinto Spagnoletti) have takentoo intermittently. And even in theanthologies of religious poetry Angelisometimes affected by omitting a pathperhaps too centrifugal.A generous contribution to the collec-tion initiated by Germani has alreadyarrived by Gianfranco Ellero, ErmesDorigo, Grazia Levi.For the Cineteca del Friuli, the FondoSiro Angeli also connects to the widestdocumentation and the increasinglystimulating rediscovery of the heritageof the Italian cinema, since the silentera onwards, with a focus on the workof Luca Comerio, Augusto Genina(which dedicates another Fondo), Ma -rio Camerini and other great authors. Italso connects to two other funds in thearchive, one dedicated to Chino Erma -cora and the one given by the critic ofUdine Mario Quargnolo, who wasamong the most righteous reviewers ofMaria Zef; but the focus is extended toother figures of the “little homeland”Friuli: Giuseppe Marchetti, NovellaCantarutti, Michele Gortani, DavidMaria Turoldo, Gaetano Perusini, andPier Paolo Pasolini. The discovery of a radio production of

4544

cist period and the Resistance activitiesare reflected in sublime gaze; the latefilm inspired by a classic Friulian litera-ture, since the youth project readingCottafavi, and in whose realizationAngeli puts into play both as a writerand as an actor body, not fearing a dif-ferent “revisionism”, what to traditionCatholic and ethnographic communi-ties; and in the middle of the period ofother great masterpieces, betweenmelodrama and period film (not yetpeplum), all marked by the centrality offemale characters, at a time that coin-cides with a tragic illness and death ofhis first wife in the Angeli’ same year inwhich he turns the most poignant ofthe funeral of the screen, that of the“lady of the camellias” starring BarbaraLaage. With Cottafavi Angeli Angels is part ofthat fertile friendship and creativegroup which also brings together theproducer Giorgio Venturini, theaterdirector of a couple of texts by Angeliand then manufacturer of variousCottafavi film sometimes scripted byAngeli. They will converge the greatcraftsmen of the Italian classic cinema,a lighting engineer as Arturo Gallea toa composer like Giovanni Fusco.All this, as well as the activities in RAIis Angeli that Cottafavi (which evenseem to develop autonomously), notedthat these figures finally goes throughthe entire artistic path, inside the cine-ma but also in the theater, in poetry, infiction, in their general humanistichumus. Cottafavi was often poets direc-tor: a Angeli and Averini are added inhis television Alfonso Gatto films(author of a foreword to one of the vol-

a) The Cinema, Barba Zef and Us

FONDO SIRO ANGELI IN LA CINETECA DEL

FRIULILa Cineteca del Friuli was deemedindispensable to provide a more com-prehensive and systematic to the atten-tion toward the figure of Siro Angeli(Cesclans 09/27/1913 - 08/22/1991Tolmezzo), an artistic personalitywhich, despite the work already doneby some scholars, It is still fully redis-covered the value.For those involved in film, Angeli isabove all co-writer and star of the bestin the Friulian language film, Maria Zef(1981) by Vittorio Cottafavi. It is, how-ever, just the tip of the iceberg in therelationship of a lifetime betweenAngeli and Cottafavi, for which thewriter was carnico interpreter in a briefrole in Fiamma che non si spegne(1949) and then collaborated on thescreenplays for Una donna ha ucciso(1952), Il boia di Lilla (1952), Traviata53 (1953) and Avanzi di galera (1954),the third-last and the last with the helpof another figure to rediscover theseplaces, Riccardo Averini from Mon -selice. As the friendship betweenCottafavi and Angeli, extended tospouses, it has always maintained, thedirect collaboration touches particularlysignificant periods of their work andtheir lives: the first post-war film of thedirector, wrongly accused of revision-ism politically ahead of its time to thehistorical events, in fact one of theworks that with more brilliance andfreedom combine universal and contin-gent, and in which the relationshipbetween both activities during the fas-

Maria Turoldo, Carlo Sgorlon, and oth-ers excerpted from Antologia della poe-sia friulana by Bindo Chiurlo; voices:Omero Antonutti, Miranda Martino;production: RAI (Radio PrimoProgramma); origin: Italy, 1975; length:51’.Sound recording (from master) fromRAI (Fondo Siro Angeli in Cineteca delFriuli).

With a reference in the title to the sec-ond of shock duration 6 May 1976destroyed an artistic and social life ofcenturies, this realization is only a firstimpression (due to a run a little con-ventional) too controlled. In factalready the surprising closeness to theevent (which unfortunately followed byother shocks) put themselves in contra-diction with the encyclopedic system topoetry and song of villotte Friuli, withstunning Miranda Martino as it is themain voice of Friuli and TriesteAntonutti (where the mentioned friend,even of our festival, Guido Botteri hasdevoted a monograph, also with thewriter’s contributions, upcoming forComunicarte / Alpe Adria Cinema edi-tions). It was expected from the posterof «Radiocorriere» the further entry ofFriuli Carla Gravina, unfortunately fall-en for several probable commitments.To us, however, the outcome of thistransmission seems miraculous in itsinevitable failure, in its will to react tothe destruction evoking the dead whotake in hand trowels to rebuild with theliving ... maybe there appears some-thing that metafascista rhetoric that hasAngeli crossed and diverted in the1930s and 1940s (with others who are

dear to us: Caracciolo, D’Errico ...).Also it can be surprising that this broad-cast predominantly in the Friulian lan-guage was broadcast on national terri-tory without any translation: and is con-tinuously stretched in a happy despiteeverything, disidentitario, be said tostand between the Friuli and saidItalian. (s.m.g.g.)

UN TERREMOTO PER TUTTI

Director: anonymous; production:CEDI-Diocesi in Udine; origin: Italy1977; format: 16mm, b/n; length: 19’.16mm from La Cineteca del Friuli.

La Cineteca del Friuli was born inresponse to the 1976 earthquake, hehas collected many remarkable eventmaterials (only in part already collectedon DVD editions), and others are stillsearching (including a GiuseppeTaffarel film). There are the works ofFriuli amateur films Lauro Pittini, thoseof the Venetian Enrico Mengotti, theprecious documentation Giulio Mauriand Valeria Bombaci, movies on thereconstruction of regret Trieste-RomanGianni Menon and the Venetian Ro -dolfo Bisatti ... Among these films, whodeserve a comprehensive proposal, weparticularly affects the anonymousshort film of the Diocese of Udine, withhis spirit stamped by the Church ofPaul VI, in which those who were atthe origin uncertainty, indecision oftenappear lumps of conscious contradic-tion (still pushing the “Roncalli” brokenin the tradition, so perhaps most excit-ing of today’s “communicative” of Pope

Francesco). This small, perhaps ran-dom nobody films son comes to ustoday with a look bare on the disaster.It was probably built by chance evenhis title, but today seems far-sighted,not only from today's earthquake, butmore generally to the destruction thatnow facing the world, not unlike theway in the 1920s, with another titleemblematic, the beautiful ElviraGiallanella for Umanità was able toremember and with a presentiment.(s.m.g.g.)

AVANZI DI GALERADirector: Vittorio Cottafavi; story: Giu -seppe Mangione, Antonio Colasurdo;screenplay: Siro Angeli, RiccardoAverini, Gigliola Falluto, G. Mangione;cinematography: Arturo Gallea; editing:Loris Bellero; music: Giovanni Fusco;cast: Richard Basehart (voice Giu lioPanicali), Valentina Cortese, EddieCostantine (voice Emilio Cigoli), FloraLillo (voice Lydia Simoneschi), WalterChiari, Antonella Lualdi (voice MariaPia Di Meo), Arnoldo Foà, A. Gallea;production: Giorgio Venturini for Pro -duzione Venturini; origin: Italy, 1954;format: 35mm, b/n; length: 94’.16mm (from 35mm) from CinetecaBruno Boschetto.

“The case histories of innocent womenand innocent women is very wide; thelegend and the story ... want women,in most cases, are the cause of all evil.Starting from the Bible ... The writersand I have formulated a less severejudgment against women than it cus-

47

Angeli transmitted in just over a monthfrom the first shock in Friuli in 1976unites the rediscovery of Angeli thecommemoration of the anniversary ofthat tragic event.

ODORE DI TERRA

Realizzazione: Ermes Dorigo; contri-butions: Siro Angeli, E. Dorigo; produc-tion: VideoTeleCarnia; origin: Italy1990; format: video, col.; length: 55’.DVD (from master video) from produc-tion (in Fondo Siro Angeli of Cinetecadel Friuli).

That the only long television interviewwith Angeli (but you would want to seeher much longer) has not been madeby RAI, where he was radio executivefor decades, but only in later years, bya small issuer of Treppo Carnico,thanks to one of the greatest scholars ofhis work, Ermes Dorigo, says the movevery bashful way of Angeli, in the Friuliand Carnia nature and that it was hisown. In these 55’ every word that comesfrom him is the sign of truth, and wehear him read some beautiful verses,including one that begin: Posso affer-mare che esisto... sublime evidence asSono nato ma by Ozu or To Be by LeoMcCarey. (s.m.g.g.)

55” COME SECOLI

Director: Gilberto Visentin; edited by:Siro Angeli; texts: by Siro Angeli, PierPaolo Pasolini, Novella Cantarutti. Ca -terina Percoto, Ippolito Nievo, David

46

the course of his life. Speaking with hisusual voice over, Maresco thereforespeaks of Scaldati career, its importancein having brought to light the mostarchaic aspects of Palermo’s languageand in having given voice to the last, tosubmerged. Is gradually to light a par-allelism that is becoming more evidentin the course of the film, that is to sayhow a program like Cinico Tv shouldScaldati, since those bodies deformedand grotesque photographed in blackand white are sons of visceral theater ofthis other great figure of an artist fromPalermo. [...] Maresco perhaps as neverbefore, we speak of Palermo, Palermoof that dirty and vital blood who didnot know yet neither Berlusconi northe building speculators, talks aboutthe puppet theater, the roots of a cul-ture and a 'popular art, whose seething,whose suffering has taken shape overthe centuries until you come to beexpressed, in its last layers, first inScaldati, then in Ciprì-Maresco ofCinico Tv. Then the black pessimism ofwhich is littered with the film - it stillspeaks of a man who was completelyforgotten by the institutions, as we areshown in the final - is colored by otherreferences than in the past. The epicstory of the losers do here, in fact evenmore conscious and it is no coinci-dence that, just at the end of the film,there is a quotation from a poem byScaldati dedicated to the defeat,because the loser is somewhat morebrave, more worthy of respect. And theexaltation of defeat - in addition tobeing a typically Orson Welles mecha-nism, which makes us recognize anoth-er parallel between Maresco and the

author of F for Fake - is somehow a vic-tory, is the value in recognizing its los-ing dignity, Cassandra unheeded, butwhose voice will eventually force to getsomeone.”

Alessandro Aniballi, Gli uomini di questa città io non li conosco, «Quinlan», December 9, 2015

FRANCO SCALDATI, AI CONFINI DEL -LA PIETÀ

Director and editing: Ciprì and Mare -sco; cinematography: Daniele Ciprì;production: Cinico Cinema/La7; origin:Italy, 2007; format: video, b/n; length:25’.

[UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS] GLI UOMINIDI QUESTA CITTÀ IO NON LI CONO-SCO - VITA E TEATRO DI FRANCOSCALDATIDirector: Franco Maresco; cinematog-raphy: Tommaso Lusena De Sarmiento;editing: Francesco Guttuso; origin:Italy, 2016; format: video, col.; length:25’.

“The relationship with Franco was bornshortly before I met Ciprì, was the mid-1980s, I believe we showed Um bertoCantone who was already an actor ofBiondo. Among us there was immedi-ately empathy because despite the agedifference we had many things in com-mon and also many similarities. Firstwe watched both with the same sensi-tivity to the humanity that was disap-pearing, to the districts that had beenemptied ... I were fascinated by a lot ofhis humor, even in his theater never

49

tomarily is used to present. Perhaps, incontrast to a world where the mistakesand violence reign, it was necessary tosoften the colors with the sweetnessand femininity. I do not know: but thecharacters are not always as we wantthem; often, as written by Pirandello,they appear to us as arrogant andimperious. Perhaps for this reason thethree women in the film are the crea-tures to which the public will be joined,as has long been fond of the threeactresses who interpret ... The story ofthree couples blends in film history,articulated through life a police com-missioner (Luigi Tosi) computer intowhich the six characters, from whichbranch off with various resolutions, towhich they return at the most impor-tant moments in the film. We are there-fore in front of a story that, like a river,has the tributaries that branch off orconverge toward the central trunk.”

Cottafavi in L.M., La storia di tre avanzi di galera, «Film d’Oggi»,

July 8-15, 1954

b) Franco Scaldati in Franco Maresco edited by Fulvio Baglivi

GLI UOMINI DI QUESTA CITTÀ IO NONLI CONOSCO - VITA E TEATRO DIFRANCO SCALDATIDirector: Franco Maresco; screenplay:Franco Maresco, Claudia Uzzo, France -sco Guttuso; cinematography: Tomma -so Lusena de Sarmiento; editing: F.Guttuso, Edoardo Morabito; contribu-tions: Franco Scaldati, Roberto Andò,Emma Dante, Goffredo Fofi, MarioMartone, Giuseppe Tornatore, RobertaTorre, Enzo Vetrano, Umberto Cantone,Emiliano Morreale, Gabriele Scaldati,Giuseppe Scaldati; production: ReanMazzone and Anna Vinci for IlaPalma/Dream Film/RAI Cinema; for-mat: video, col. and b/n; origin: Italy,2015; length: 86’.DCP da produzione.

“It followed the structure is very similarto that of Io sono Tony Scott: a histori-cal reconstruction that passes throughdifferent phases - including the ascent -and up to a present of desolation anddefeat, of disappearance and disinte-gration, loss of social and collectivememory. Even Scaldati as Tony Scott, isa forgotten, a repressed, which hasenjoyed only partial recognition, partic-ularly in the eighties, but instead of theAmerican clarinetist has not closed inon itself and, rather, has continued topromote theater culture in Palermo,arriving to hold workshops in neigh-borhoods and to experience first theunderclass lives and recognize them-selves in it, as he had always done in

48

Self-Portraits in the Mirror: Jonas Mekas

and Jackie Raynal

51

failed comedy, a genre he loved verymuch and from which he took thesense of the ‘rhythm’; I always said thatFranco was also a comedian. Anotherfundamental aspect is that Scaldati wasself-taught, the books he read themdoing the tailor, if they had gone toseek alone; was one who read every-thing, was omnivorous. For me it wasimportant to meet a man who is novelapproaches to literature, film, art, in thesame spirit hungry, chaotic and anar-chic, I had too. We discovered that weattended the same local cinema: Dante,Italia, Eden, Noce; we had the samepassion for some popular music ... lit-erally had a common background, thatI had already found in his theater. [...]When Cinico TV explodes, Franco wasone of the few to understand what itactually confirming its sensitivity andattention, and that his younger friend, I,I brought forward my way his poetry ,his vision. He also understood that wecould have been fellow travelers andnot only ‘heirs’ as we called it yearslater. [...] Certainly Scaldati was ignoredby the cinema and the cultural appara-tuses because he was good, but not tomove in the ‘right circles’, did not fre-quent the salons, was a man introvert-ed and shy that he did not and couldnot sell. As I wrote at the time of deathhe was an old man, in the sense that itcame from a world with other values and has begun to take its first stepsas an author in a unique time forPalermo.”

Naked, Viaggio in Italia 1 - Conversazione con Franco Maresco,

«Film Parlato», October 26, 2015

50

53

Everything will disappear.Everything will be reborn.

Tribute to Marina Pierroand Walerian Borowczyk

JACKIE RAYNALBorn in Poilhes in 1940, JacquelineRaynal was as an actress, and especial-ly film editor, a presence that unitessome of the most intense figures ofthe Nouvelle Vague: Jean-Daniel Pollet,Eric Rohmer, Philippe Garrel, but alsothe heretic José Bénazéraf. He has cre-ated and starred in several films, suchas those still under construction, areworks in progress deferred. Among others he collaborated to edit-ing and directing: Merce Cunninghamby Etienne Becker, Jackie Raynal,Patrice Wyers (1963), Cover Girls byJosé Bénazéraf (1963), La Carrière deSuzanne by Eric Rohmer (1963), LaBoulagère de Monceau by Eric Rohmer(1963), Héraclite l’obscur by PatrickDeval (1967), La Concentration byPhilippe Garrel (1968), Détruisez-vous:le fusil silencieux by Serge Bard (1969),La Maman et la putain by JeanEustache (1973). Among the films shemade: Deux fois (1968), New York Story(1984), Hôtel New York (1984), Notes onJonas Mekas (2000), Bandes à part(2001), Around Jacques Baratier (2002),Portrait of Simon Lazard (2003), LaNuit de l’ours (2005), Gougnette (2009),Elliott et Bulle (2013).

NOTES SUR JONAS MEKAS

Director and editing: Jackie Raynal;cinematography: Adam Kahan; origin:France, 2000; format: video, col.;length: 26’.MP4 (from master video) by author.

Jonas Mekas, from the movie: “Everysecond, while you are talking, there are

films ranging powder. But at the sametime, always while you are talking,somewhere someone makes a movie,or a video, in short, someone createsthe images. Someone new, very young,we do not know. Here, and in Africa, orAsia, in South America, Alaska, every-where in the world. It is still amazing,millions of video cameras! And so theseimages are produced, they are realized.Some are of the factory image, routineimages. But there are people who makethem as they would poems. really theydo what they want with the images, andenjoy! In general, people take them-selves too seriously. That’s the problemtoday. Too serious ... think too much.Plan. But it is better not to plan ... Whenyou plan, you would like your plan suc-ceeds. And you have the tanks behindhim, and you have the guns to imple-ment your plan. No good, these are thepeople who think.”

REMINISCENCES OF JONAS MEKAS

Director: Jackie Raynal; story: André S.Labarthe and Janine Bazin for seriesCinéastes de notre temps; production:KIDAM; origin: France, 2015; format:video, col.; length: 52’.Blu-ray (from master video) by produc-tion.

André S. Labarthe entrusts a missionimpossible to Jackie Raynal: create aportrait of a filmmaker who has neverstopped making portraits. What cannever Jonas Mekas film that has notalready been impressed on film? JackieRaynal provides a prodigious effort.

52

Nobody’s ChildrenItalian films collected by Simone Starace, II

55

FLOATERSDirector, screenplay: Marina Pierro; cine-matography, editing: Alessio Pierro;music: Johann Sebastian Bach, MauroGiu liani; production: M. Pierro forCupressus Film; origin: Italy, 2006[-2016]; format: Digital, b/n and col.;length: 9’.

IN VERSI

Director, screenplay: Marina Pierro; cin-ematography, editing: Alessio Pierro;music: Johann Sebastian Bach, W.A.Mozart; cast: M. Pierro, Gianluigi Zelli;production: M. Pierro for Cu pressusFilm; origin: Italy, 2008[-2016]; format:Digital, col.; length: 24’.

HIMOROGI

Director: Marina Pierro, Alessio Pierro;screenplay: M. Pierro; cinematography,editing: Alessio Pierro; music: BernardParmegiani; production: M. Pierro; ori-gin: Italy, 2012; format: Digital, b/n andcol.; length: 17’.DCP from the authors.

MARINA PIERRO, THE STRANGE FASCINATION

OF A QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

Cecila Ermini. Before knowing Boro hisart studies ranged from esotericism topainting, a kind of preparatory groundfertile. As it did in your artistic partner-ship this common matrix?Marina Pierro. Our meeting was predes-tined: Walerian loved the Italian cul-ture, architecture, literature, music. Ihad an absolute passion for surrealist

universe, the poetry of Rimbaud andBreton, the Buñuel film, photographyof Man Ray. There also in common agreat interest in Freud and psycho-analysis, astrology and the esotericworld and mystery of Gurdjieff andHelena Blavatsky. But mostly we unit-ed us - we found out by workingtogether - the same visual conceptionof the film, in which live the fantasticand the poetic, the divine and the dia-bolical, and “the étrange fascination.”C.E. [...] His short film as a director,Himorogi, pays homage to the filmBorowczyk with the return of objects-fetishes of his films, stripped of anykind of classical narrative.M.P. Himorogi born as a composition ofhaiku, a form of Japanese verse of thepoem of seventeen syllables. With thefundamental collaboration director ofthe painter Alessio Pierro, who alsoworked on the set design and photog-raphy in the film, we wanted to paytribute to the artist who has created adreamlike visionary-only world, bring-ing back a vision of the genesis of hisworks, together the close link with theobjects for him animated like an actor.Give movement to a figure drawn insequence, to move the object using thetechnique of stop motion or directingthe actor were the same thing. Addedto this is the significant musical contri-bution of the great French composerBernard Parmegiani, chanting evoca-tive and fantastic images that becomethe real core of the narrative action inan imaginary time.

Cecilia Ermini, «il manifesto», May 4, 2014

54

Montuori; music: Giuseppe Becce; cast:Rossa no Brazzi, Irasema Dilian,Valentina Cortese, Carlo Ninchi, AldoSilvani, Laura Carli, Massimo Serato,Camillo Pilotto; production:Fincine/Domus; origin: Italy, 1947; for-mat: 35mm, b/n; length: 92’.16mm (from 35mm) from Penny Video.

Preventive film review (August 14,1947): “The story exposed in the pres-ent script is a clear reduction of thewriter Stendhal’s novel of the samename. In this exhibition many narrativeelements of the original work havebeen transformed and others silenced;avoided altogether was then the partabout the ecclesiastical career of theprotagonist. So far no objectionbecause, you know well, how muchfreedom habitually uses in the filmadaptation of literary works. But theauthors also wanted, with some inap-propriate jokes of dialogue, giving anarbitrary meaning to the title of thatwork, by explaining to a character inthe story that the two names of colors‘red and black’ would mean the reac-tionary party and the conservative,referring, it means well, at the timewhen the action takes place, while thesame Stendhal says that to Rouge etnoir he means his military career andhis ecclesiastical career of Julian Sorel.It therefore seems appropriate thatsuch jokes (screenplay pp. 9 and 10)should be deleted to avoid little flatter-ing on Italian culture.”

“Immediately after the war I metGenna ro Righelli; Steno and I werecalled suddenly from Righelli to make a

script: Il corriere del re, from Stendhal’sIl rosso e il nero. Righelli received us athis home, in via Flaminia towardsPonte Milvio; He ushered into the din-ing room where there was a long table,and he was at one end of the table. Hetold us: ‘I want to make a movie fromIl rosso e il nero by Stendhal; but I havealready done, has been one of mygreatest achievements in the silent era,it was called Il corriere del re [Dergeheime Kurier, 1928] and was playedby Ivan Mosjoukine’. Then everythingwent well: he began to write on hisown, ‘the first scene’, and so onthroughout the rest of the film; everytime I had written something to rereadit aloud, he turned to me and asked, ‘Isit okay? we agree?’; I did so; then askedSteno, who was so, and went on, like atank! Since we were no longer in themute, the characters had to tell jokes:the scenes, the environments, the arc ofthe story was the same, made of wholecloth by his silent film, only that weapplied the jokes, the most obvious. Ineleven days we wrote the wholescript!”

Mario Monicelli, L’arte della commedia, edited by Lorenzo Codelli,

Dedalo, Bari, 1986

PIUME AL VENTO

Director: Ugo Amadoro; supervision:Goffredo Alessandrini; screenplay: U.Amadoro, Stefano Canzio, FabrizioTaglioni, Gabelli, Domenico Paolella,G. Alessandrini; cinematography: SergioPe sce; editing: Giuseppe Vari; music:Alberto De Castello; cast: Leo nardo

57

TEHERANDirector: William Freshman [andGiacomo Gentilomo]; story: DorothyHope; screenplay: Oreste Biancoli,Basil Mason, A.R. Rawlinson, AlbertoVecchietti, Giovanni Del Lungo, AkosTolnay, W. Freshman; cinematography:Ubal do Arata; editing: Renzo Lucidi;music: Enzo Masetti; cast: Derek Farr,Martha Labarr, Manning Whiley, JohnSlater, John Warwick, Enrico Glori,Enzo Fiermonte (voice Alberto Sordi),Vera Bergman; production: JohnStafford and A. Tolnay for ICAI/Stafford-Pendennis; origin: Italy/UK,1946; format: 35mm, b/n; length: 89’.16mm (from 35mm) from Penny Video.

“We speak English, english spoken, inthe film studios of the CirconvallazioneAppia, best known as the laying ofScalera theaters. [...] They all lookBritish in there, the production manag-er Valentino Brosio, the Count deCarpegna manufacturer: all nice andready to give detailed information onthe production. The director WilliamFreshman, finally, is an angel: he neverraises his voice, speaks cordially witheveryone and even if someone has togo to hell, he does it with much grace(but so far did not send anyone tohell). The film that turns the currentlyScalera, produced by John Stafford andAkos Tolnay to the ICAI, entitledTeheran and is played by two younghighly popular British actors, DerekFarr and Martha Labarr, together withour Rossano Brazzi, Vera Bergman,Enrico Glori, Enzo Fiermonte, LuigiPavese and Valentino Bruchi. Teheran

is a topical films, whose subject hadBasil Mason, William Freshman andAkos Tolnay, was derived in part fromdocuments provided by the Britishintelligence. Some years ago, at thetime of the Tehran conference notes,the British police learned of an attackthat was preparing against PresidentRoosevelt in the basement of theAmerican legation. The authors of thedocument - miraculously foiled - weresome individuals of dubious nationalitywho were all brought to justice andthat certainly were acting on behalf ofan enemy power. It seems that to dis-cover the plans of the bombers was aBritish journalist, whose figure is pre-cisely evoked in films by Derek Farr.During our recent visit to the Scalera inthe theater n. 6 turned a bustling sceneof the Bazaar of Tehran, which wasattended by numerous extras in multi-colored clothes. The scene had beenset up with a taste particularly veristicby Veniero Colasanti and it was verypicturesque. Among many Levantineand Arab from the dark face, there wasonly one natural color, and seemed tobe very sad in the midst of so many ofhis countrymen who spoke with astrong accent of Trasteve.

Italo Dragosei, Alla Scalera si parla inglese, «Star», March 2, 1946

IL CORRIERE DEL RE

Director: Gennaro Righelli; story: fromthe novel Le Rouge et le Noir byStendhal; screenplay: G. Righelli, MarioMoni celli, Steno, Ignazio L. Nicolai,Ernesto Guida; cinematography: Carlo

56

the center of a major atout: he smallAugusto, a child of less than two years,with great communication. Around thesmall move William Tubbs (the profes-sor), Lia Amanda (a new discovery ofMoguy, in the role of mommy derelict),Nino Milano, and other more or lessknown actors.”

Gaetano Carancini, «La VoceRepubblicana», March 11, 1952

“The war, this unconscious unleashingof all the forces destroying, has - ascomets - a long and gloomy ruins ofmoral, civil decay wake of infighting, inwhich regurgitates all the evil of themen and things and in which it takes itslurks over the worst instincts, no longerheld back, passion, no longer con-trolled, in greed, not lesser, in the long-ings, no longer limited. The film, whichis often photographic chronicle of thelife, perhaps too stressed to play coollyand sometimes complacently the worstaspects and most striking of aninevitable phenomenon although hor-rendous. [...] Well, this Leonida Moguyfilm, Cento piccole mamme, want to beand it’s like a ray of sunshine thatbrings humanity shocked and disheart-ened by the announcement of thestorm returned serene, the light of anew hope, the warmth of a revivedgoodness, for which the heart, theheart of all, can once again beat, host-ing noble and eternal feelings. [...] Andas was once the white dove to Noah tobring the first announcement of theflood ceased, today the innocence of achild, bright and pure, is entrusted withthe task of giving men this new tidings.So Leonida Moguy explains why ideal

59

Cortese, Olga Gorgoni, Cristina Velvet,Mario Ferrari, Peter Trent, Dante Mag -gio, Enzo Cerusico; production: BucciFilm; origin: Italy, 1950; format: 35mm,b/n; length: 82’.16mm (from 35mm) from Penny Video.

Preventive film review (July 22, 1950):“The story is set in a village of theBasso Piave, occupied by the Austriansduring the invasion of 1917. In thefather's house, Anna is consumed whilewaiting for Stefano, an officer of theBersaglieri, with which you wereengaged in the previous year. The airbears the weight of oppression, accen-tuated by the arrival of eight Austrianofficers, who take residence in thesame house. Among these emerges thehandsome Captain von Toepliz, sur-rounding Anna of assiduous court. Butthe privacy mistress irritates vonToepliz that, to make up for the humil-iation suffered, does place under oneroof the maid Marta Florens, rookie forthe Austrian armed forces in the villagetheater. Anna, who is forced to give herroom, looking with contempt this inter-national star, which it considers theenemy spy, while in reality Marta isconquered by dignity, pride and thepatriotic spirit of the family, of whichhe is host. [...] This is a pretty basicaffair, which aims to make lever onattachment of the Italian public for thebody of Bersaglieri and certain patriot-ic reasons linked to the memory of theother war”. A second review, to now over films(November 29, 1950), claims that “aredeleted scenes where you see somedancers who wear cloaks with

emblems of the Empire Austro-Hungarian Empire (double eagle); andthe beat of Mark is removed: ‘They arethe masters and we must treat themwith respect’ (p. 18).”

CENTO PICCOLE MAMME

Director: Giulio Morelli, LéonideMoguy; story: Jean Guitton; screenplay:L. Moguy; cinematography: GiorgioOrsini; editing: Dolores Tamburini;music: Carlo Innocenzi; cast: WilliamTubbs, Lia Amanda, Clelia Matania, Au -gusto Pennella, Checco Durante, JuanDe Landa, Beatrice Mancini; produc-tion: L. Moguy for Italian InternationalFilm; origin: Italy, 1952; format: 35mm,b/n; length: 105’.16mm (from 35mm) from Penny Video.

“Leonide Moguy filmed in 1936, Lemioche: a candid tale in which werenarrated the adventures of a good pro-fessor, showy raining at home an illegit-imate child, takes him in a girls’ board-ing school. Now Moguy, redeemed thehistory of that time producer, wantedto replicate for the public to the rosyintrigue today, entrusting directed toGiulio Morelli. The subject, now set inItaly, appears terribly aged, especiallydesigned to be a celebration of absolutegoodness, that is spreading from thefirst to the last episode, which affectsall the characters [...]. Giulio Morellitold all adapting to the tone of the textand engaging enough to come happilyto the last shot. And the little film flowson nicely to the public by the kind andeasy heart to the emotion, because it is

58

that moved him to make this his newfilm - the most dear to her heart - themost important for assumed moral, themost challenging and the most satisfy-ing for its prestige as an artist and film-maker. And he never spoke of his work- all of which is and remains a master-piece - so enthusiastically and withmore secure certainty of having accom-plished artistically worthy work andspectacularly efficient.”

Leonida Moguy parla di Cento piccolemamme, «Il Messaggero», March 5, 1952

I CALUNNIATORIDirector: Franco Cirino, Mario Volpe;story: Enrica Bacci; screenplay: E. Bacci,A. Bisognino, F. Cirino, Mangani; cine-matography: Mauro Chiodini, OberdanTroiani; editing: Jenner Menghi; music:Antonio Capodanno; cast: AchilleTogliani, Laura Nucci, Turi Pandolfini,Evar Maran, Carmen Brandi, CesareFantoni, Renato Malavasi; production:Alcyone Film; origin: Italy, 1956; for-mat: 35mm, b/n; length: 89’.16mm (from 35mm) from Penny Video.

Plot from preventive film review (July17, 1956): “The fifty year old GiacomoDani returns to his country after manyyears of absence and finds his cousins,Carlo and Elvira, who live in an oldhouse owned by the same Giacomo.He was in his youth a disappointmentin love and is still a bachelor. Giacomoknows Dorina, a sixteen year old girl,granddaughter of an old fisherman ofthe place. Gia como is interested in thegirl, who has a beautiful voice, and is

Small World, Big Shadow (The Venetians are crazy, I)

61

Lady Manenti was Godmother to thefirst turn of the handle had been estab-lished), in which it was recognized andmentioned only name Cirino as a direc-tor.”

60

able to convince the old grandfather toclose, at his expense, Dorina in a edu-cantato in Rome. [...] Some time passesand Giacomo revises Dorina, whobecame a woman now. The girl falls inlove with her benefactor and the twoend up getting married, despite theconsiderable age difference. When Car -lo and Elvira learn the news of the richcousin’s wedding go on a rampage,especially Elvira that in his heart he hadalways cherished the dream of marry-ing Giacomo. They think of revengeand practice a diabolical plan. InviteDorina in the country and Carlo willseduce her to make her look guilty inthe eyes of her husband.”

The film, made on a budget of only 36million, is produced with the participa-tion of the authors in the profits, butthe proceeds will be affected by aregional distribution limited to a fewareas (Sicily, Emilia, Puglia, Campania).The grievances of the two directors,will answer a letter from Alcyone Filmdated February 28, 1957: “Mr MarioVolpe [...] must solely and exclusivelyto the good heart of Miss Bacci - forgetabout a bad incoming action by Volpeyears ago when he was director of thefilm Le due sorelle produced by VenereFilm of which was then the ' adminis-tering the same Bacci - the directingtogether with Mr Franco Cirino the filmI calunniatori produced by AlcyoneFilm because it had to be film directorFranco Cirino only, and what does faithin our possession of the letter ofManenti Film on March 12, 1956 (inwhich the rental and for sheer wicked-ness of third fell through after the same

62

the captain - ‘round the world.’ [...] Thedeliberate emphasis in the story of thefairy tale tone, the introduction of somelively and colorful sequences, such asthe ‘novillada’ (free corrida of youngbulls through the streets of a city) alsocontribute to raising the level of thescript. [...] The figure of the protagonist insteadpreserves the heterogeneity characteris-tics already detected at first reading;nor could it be otherwise because,obviously, a multipurpose inspirationpresided over the birth of the character.Maintained in mid air between realityand fable, written with obvious effortand attention to detail, the script seemsto be inspired to very ambitious inten-tions. [...] The film’s director Renato Dall’Ara (theauthor of the story and co-author of thescreenplay) is the author of the shortfilm ‘a subject’ Scano-Boa, winner ofthe first prize in the competition FEDIC1957 and praised as a revelation by thepress (including an article by Alessan -dro Blasetti).”

L’ISOLA CHE C’ERADirector, cinematography, editing, pro-duction: Alberto Gambato; story: A.Gambato, Vittorio Sega; contributions:Lamberto Morelli (voice) and scenesfrom the short film Scano Boa (1954)by Renato Dall’Ara; format: HD, col.and b/n; origin: Italy, 2014; length: 10’.MP4 (from master video) from author.

In 1954 the director of Rhodes RenatoDall'Ara, with the help of a group of

MOBBY JACKSONDirector, story: Renato Dall’Ara; screen-play: Giorgio Arlorio, R. Dall’A ra; cine-matography: Carlo Bellero; editing:Zimmerwald [Edmondo Lozzi]; musica:Roman Vlad; cast: LawrenceMontaigne, Lissia Kalenda, José Jaspe,Mario Perrone, Franco Cobianchi,Isarco Ravaioli, Walter Santesso, ArchieSavage, Vittoria Prada; production:Mario Colambassi for Ara Cinematogra -fica; origin: Italy, 1960; format: 35mm,b/n; length: 79’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

Storyline and judging by the review pre-ventive film (May 6, 1959): “Elementaryand generous, the sailor Mobby Jacksonis a dreamy globetrotter passing fromone port to another, from oneembarkation and from one adventureto another with the ease of an acrobatwhimsical, well-liked by peers andbeloved by women for its essentialinnocence and spontaneous generosity.But one day in a remote street, Mobbymeets a half-savage girl, Esmeralda,who lives with an old uncle set in thesearch for a hypothetical underseatreasure, made the subject of court ofan unpleasant and arrogant admirer. Tosubtract her to his environment, Mobbytakes the girl with him in the city and,later, falls in love and plan to marry.Perdutosi behind Esmeralda, thoughMobby is for the first time withoutboarding and even without money;must therefore accept the offer ofCaptain Flores - which is something ofa local Camorra boss - and embark onone of its ships to fulfill - according to

63

SCANO BOADirector: Renato Dall’Ara; story: R. Dal -l’Ara, Lucia Avanzi from the novel byGian Antonio Cibotto; screenplay:Tullio Pinelli, Ugo Moretti, BenedettoBenedetti, Rodolfo Sonego, GiorgioCavedon; cinematography: AntonioMacasoli; editing: Armando Nalbone;cast: Carla Gravina, José Suarez, AlainCuny, Emma Penella, Walter Santesso,José Jaspe, Olga Solbelli, Giulio Calì,Polidor, Marisa Solinas, GianfrancoPenzo; production: Francesco Corti forCinematografica Lombarda / Ara Cine -matografica / Luvi Cinematografica; ori-gin: Italy/ Spagna, 1961; format: 35mm,b/n; length: 88’.35mm from Lab80.

“Scano Boa is the name of a fishing vil-lage into Pila di Porto Tolle, to theextreme of the Po delta, in the provinceof Rovigo. [...] Of this desolate stretchof sand fell in love a novelist painterand photographer of Rovigo, GianAntonio Cibotto, born in 1925, son ofanti-fascist anti-fascists, wild wanderer.[...] Scano Boa was a strong film, fromunique genesis: a double debut. It wasfilmed in 1954 a first version in 16 mmwhich had depopulated the festival ofamateur filmmakers, in Rapallo and inMontecatini. So successful that goaround the world: Cannes, Berlin,Madrid. [...] Remake the film at large, with the realfilm and real actors, of course, hadbecome the obsession of its director,Renato Dall'Ara, thirty-six, architect ofRovigo, owner of a shoe factory, joinedthe PCI. Seven years later, supported by

friends and fellow communists cine -philes of Pula, realizes by himself andjust for fun his first short film, inspiredby a true story happened a few weeksbefore in Scano Boa, last strip of sandand Mediterranean territory in the formof long island about five kilometersseparate the delta of the Po from theAdriatic. Sixty years later, LambertoMorelli is the only survivor of the crew.

“Chairman of Cinecircolo Adria, wasVittorio Sega remember impending60th anniversary of Scano Boa, firstattempt to Renato Dall’Ara behind thecamera. In April 2013 Rovigo breathedthe atmosphere of the 91 years oldGiancarlo Morelli loss, parliamentaryand communist mayor during the floodof the Po in 1951. The funeral provedunable to report in Rovigo his brotherLamberto, rose from Rome where helived for more than 40 years. LambertoMorelli is the only survivor of the groupof friends and comrades who in 1954,on the heels of the enthusiasm ofRenato Dall’Ara, realized what isbelieved to be La Sortie de l’usineLumière of Polesine. The shot of 1954and today’s reflections LambertoMorelli on the historical sediment ofthe last sixty years found a space fordiscussion in the current images ofScano Boa, uninhabited island at themercy of storms, the earth also timingmargins, where everything seemsalready happened and still possible atthe same time.” (Alberto Gam bato)

between those who feel hard life of thecountryside and dreams of escape andwho is attached to that life as yourblood. The Polesine is about landscapeand psychologically functional environ-ment.”

Piero Zanotto, Veneto in film - Il censimento del cinema ambientato nelterritorio (1895-2002), Marsilio/Regione

del Veneto, Venice, 2002

[PROVINO DI WALTER SANTESSO PERFEDERICO FELLINI]Director: Federico Fellini; cast: WalterSantesso, Ingrid Bergman [off], Leopol -do Trieste [off]; origin: Italy s.d.; for-mat: 35mm, b/n; length: 2’.DVD (from 35mm) from Cineteca diBologna.

- What interpreter of La dolce vita wouldyou trust the lead role in an upcomingfilm?- A Walter Santesso, because it repre-sents a ‘type’ with his personal charac-teristics defined.

Federico Fellini, from medium-lengthfilmWalter Santesso, una vita per

il cinema, Province of Padua, 2009

EROE VAGABONDO

Director, story: Walter Santesso; screen-play: W. Santesso, Lucia Avanzi, IbelloBorsetto, Antonio Lenzoni; cinematog-raphy: Manuel Rojas, Aldo de Robertis;editing: Alberto Gallitti; cast: WalterSantesso, Nuria Torray, Antonio Prieto,Olga Solbelli, Giulio Calì, Tota Alba,Albino Principe, Renato Terra Caizi

music: Francesco De Masi; production:Mario Colambassi and José P.Villanueva for Dacofilm/Lenzonifilm/Argos Producciones; origin: Italy/Spain,1966; format: 35mm, b/n; length: 92’.35mm from Cineteca di Bologna.

“Misadventures chain of a pure heart -Bueno para nada is the Spanish title -hat does not lose his optimism.Designed, written (in the company),directed and starred by the PaduanSantesso, actor since 1951, which had amoment of popularity when Fellinigave him the part of Paparazzo in Ladolce vita. Set in a rural Spain outsidehistory if not the weather, it is faintun'operina of grace, full of echoes felli-neschi: angelism, picarismo, poeticism,loneliness, the circus, the street. Its lim-its are sentimentality and self-pity.”

Il Morandini 2015. Dizionario dei film e delle serie televisive,

Zanichelli, Bologna, 2015

L’IMPORTANZA DI AVERE UN CAVALLO

Director: Walter Santesso; story: fromthe novel by Guido Rocca; screenplay:W. Santesso, Ibello Borsetto; co-direc-tor: Maria Cecconello; cinematography:Silvano Savio; music: Francesco DeMasi (the De Mutis-De Masi’s song Uncavallo bianco is sung by SandroAlessandroni Jr.); cast: Luciano Rigoni,Cristiano Benetti, Mario Stefani, GuidoBernar, Roberto Benetti, Pietro Grandis;production: Lumicon Film; origin: Italy,1969; format: 16mm, b/n; length: 42’.16mm from Cineteca del Friuli (FondoRegione Veneto).

65

the Milanese Francesco Corti owner ofICET, Dall'Ara was able to turn the doc-umentary into a feature film. [...] Theshooting had their share of misfortune:a couple of floods did evacuate twicethirty people in the film. There weremore people in the crew who in Scano.According to the most favorablereviewers in its best moments the filmapproaches the height of certainsequences of L’uomo di Aran byFlaherty, or makes you think of La terratrema by Visconti. Seen today, even ifdeprived of the dream book characterCibotto, reminiscent of certain islandsand some films from arthouse festival,Japanese ghost. [...] If we want to keep Italian cinema, wecan put together Scano Boa andL’antimiracolo by Elio Piccon (1965),last censored films of Lux Cristaldi,another goddamn work on Italy impos-sible. [...] Despite a projection in Locarno, ScanoBoa went wrong and as needed whilepicking on someone, if they took firstwith bad weather, then with the blackand white was setting, and finally, as ifwe were on the island, with thewomen.”

Tatti Sanguineti, Il cervello di Alberto Sordi. Rodolfo Sonego e il suo cinema,

Adelphi, Milan, 2015

[INTERVISTA A GIAN ANTONIO CI -BOTTO]Shooting: Giancarlo Marinelli; contribu-tions: Gian Antonio Cibotto; origin:Italy, 2004; length: 5’.DVD from production.

“It is useless to look on the map thelocations named in this book (orgroped free character identifications).The geographical accuracy is not adelusion. The Delta Padano, for exam-ple, does not exist. The same applies, afortiori, for Scano Boa. I know, wehave experienced.”

Gian Antonio Cibotto, Scano Boa,Vallecchi, Florence, 1958

QUANDO LA PELLE BRUCIA

Director: Renato Dall’Ara; screenplay:Benedetto Benedetti, R. Dall’Ara; cine-matography: [Emilio Varriano]; editing:Luciano Cavalieri, [Edmondo Lozzi];music: Oscar Pacelli, Bruno Chiavega -to; cast: Lissia Kalenda, Bruno Cattaneo,Olga Solbelli, Manfred Freyberger,Antonio Bullo, Spartaco Rumor, Rossel -la D’Aquino; production: Mario Colam -bassi for Daco Film; origin: Italy, 1966;format: 35mm, b/n; length: 83’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“In a small town of Polesine, Wandinahas been targeted by malicious gossipof the people for his conduct too free.A day disappears. It is thought to havedrowned, others believe has fled. Soeven Antonio, her husband, partly tofind her. He stops in Loreo where hemeets a girl, Nevi, who reminds him ofhis wife and who falls in love. Nevi andmother wish to leave the country andwould like Antonio the learning fromthose inhibit the girl’s father, attachedto his land. [...] Uneven film, which has branches invarious strands, including the contrast

64

“Santesso has composed a very funnyfilm, polite and smiling, which madeamends willingly some ingenuity, somedefect of the structure, for the sake ofsimplicity, fresh and candid directnesswith which tells the kind, and evenuplifting tale ... ”

Dario Zanelli, «Il Resto Del Carlino», 1979

[IO E...] GUIDO PIOVENE E... IL‘BATTESIMO DI CRISTO’ DI BELLINIDirector: Luciano Emmer; concept:Anna Zanoli; contributions: GuidoPiovene; production: RAI; origin: Italy1972; format: 16mm, col.; length: 15’.DVD (from master video from 16mm)from Fuori orario.

[IO E...] GOFFREDO PARISE E...PIAZZA SAN MARCO

Director: Luciano Emmer; concept:Anna Zanoli; contributions: GoffredoParise; production: RAI; origin: Italy1972; format: 16mm, col.; length: 15’.DVD (from master video from 16mm)from Fuori orario.

“Io e... was born from the desire of thedirector Fabiani, who wanted to pro-pose to the viewer of the TV attractive-ness of a meeting with non-school visu-al arts. It had to be the opposite of themuch vaunted conversations KennethClark for the BBC. The British serieswas saved only the starting point of theone to one relationship: a famous per-son in front of a masterpiece he chose.But the work of art had to have com-

ments different tone, was to be thestory of emotion for which he hadcome into his life, a confessionaddressed to the viewer directly, with-out going through the interviewer'sfield.”

Anna Zanoli in Stefano Francia di Celle, enrico ghezzi (edited by),

Mister(o) Emmer: l’attenta distrazione, Museo Nazionale

del Cinema, Turin, 2004

“Most interesting movies of the trans-mission RAI Io e..., 1972, curated byAnna Zanoli, where important culturalfigures are compared with your favoritework (art work or otherwise - is thecase of the EUR by Fellini - with some-thing to which the character feels par-ticularly drawn). In most cases, theseare paintings, confirming the fact thatEmmer continues to carry around in itsmost varied forms (carousels included)his reputation as a sensitive director tothe audiovisual narrative of paintingsand painters. [...] Completely open, however, turned theepisode with Parise, curiously launchedby irreverent vision of a souvenir like‘San Marco in the Snow’, which intro-duces the description of a beauty feltlike all linked daily existence: ‘Not youcan think of a Piazza San Marcoabstract, museificata, we must think ofit as a work of living art.’ The images,meanwhile, tell the dawn of theVenetian heart while slowly awakens,with the arrival of garbage collectorsand municipal interventions who feedthe pigeons, then the opening of thebar, the beginning of many activitiesand the most varied works. Until every-

67

First Italian film premiered at the filmfestival for children in Mar de La Plata,essentially self-produced by Santessoand his wife Maria Cecconello. Despitethe international success in Italy he hada very limited circulation and wasbroadcast on TV once, March 3, 1972.

IL VOLO DI TEODirector: Walter Santesso; story: MariaCecconello; screenplay: W. Santes so,Ibello Borsetto, Daniele Stroppa; co-director: Maria Cecco nello; cinematog-raphy: Angelo Lannutti; editing: FrancoLetti; music: Gianni Ferrio; cast: GiulioPampiglione, Maria Fiore, PhilippeLeroy, Allan Hayes, Maria Teresa Ruta,Anamaria Ghiuseleva, Michel Rocher,Daniele Stroppa; production: RemoAngioli for Real Film, with the partici-pation of Ada Saruis Bandiera; origin:Italy, 1992; format: 35mm, col.; length:98’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“The story about the eleven years oldLeo, son of divorced parents, grew upin the countryside with her grandmoth-er at a pace dictated by nature andalways valid between old values, inconfidence with the barnyard animals,who has taken to heart a bunny. Oneday his mother makes him change hislife by transferring it to the city. Newhabits, the companions selfish and thenews that the country house was soldin addition to the killing of her bunny,throw it into turmoil leading him to fleeas a gesture of rebellion and rejection.[...]

The setting is Villa Previdi in Madonnadi Erbé, in the province of Verona.”

Piero Zanotto, Veneto in film -Il censimento del cinema ambientato nelterritorio (1895-2002), Marsilio/Regione

del Veneto, Venice, 2002

LA CARICA DELLE PATATE

Director: Walter Santesso; story: FlaviaPaulon; screenplay: W. Santesso, IbelloBorsetto, Adriano Cavallo, Elia Guiotto;cinematography: Marcello Gatti, Fede -rico Zanni; editing: Alberto Moriani;music: Francesco De Masi (the song Laguerra delle patate by G. Guardabassiand F. De Masi is sung by the Coro diVoci Bianche of Paolo Lucci); circuscounseling: Ashrafi Mahabadi Biyan;cast: Tommy Polgar, Walter Margara,Luigi D’Ecclesia and the children ofChioggia; production: Sergio Borelli forJuventute/Lumicon; origin: Italy, 1979;format: 35mm, col.; length: 93’.35mm from Cineteca di Bologna.

“A gang of kids is committed to defendthe lives of some cats and in particularsave one, stolen by the owner of a cir-cus in a child. Man, in fact, convincedof being able to make walking onwater creatures, he is responsible for‘mischief’. He will be driven by a‘charged’ with the launch of potatoes ...Award winner for Best Film at theFestival of Giffoni Valle Piana. Exteriorin Venice and Chioggia.”

Roberto Poppi, Mario Pecorari (edited by), Dizionario del cinema

italiano: dal 1970 al 1979,Gremese, Rome, 1996

66

PARALLEL CONVERGENCES

LA VITA SEMPLICE

Director, story and editing: [Francesco]de Robertis; screenplay: [F. De Ro bertis,Giovanni Passante Spaccapietra]; cine-matography: Barcaroli [Bruno Barca -rol]; music: [Ennio] Porrini; cast: [Lu -ciano] De Ambrosis, [Maurizio] D’An -cora, [Giuseppe] Zago, [Giulio] Stival,[Giovanni] Cavalieri, Anna Bianchi, An -na Mancini; production: [Max] Calandrifor Scalera Film; origin: Italy, 1946; for-mat: 35mm, b/n; length: 83’. DVD (from 35mm) from a private col-lection.

“With the path of De Robertis cross, aswell as Rossellini, two other filmmak-ers, younger authors decidedly unclas-sifiable works, such as Giorgio Bianchi,director of Uomini sul fondo (1941),and Giorgio Ferroni, who will share -exactly as de Robertis - the Salo expe-rience, cowering in factories Scalera inGiudecca to escape the dangerousGerman curiosity. The two Venetian De Robertis films, Ifigli della laguna (1944) and La vitasemplice, are precisely what remains ofhis actual illegal activity, carried outunder the auspices of the SocialRepublic. They appear as two works of greatconsistency and freedom, in which waralready belongs to another world, notunlike the episode of the friars inPaisà, however, made in 1946, a yearafter the war ended. But again, after co-directed La nave

bianca (1941), the contiguity Rossellinifilm marks De Robertis.”

Sergio Grmek Germani, I registi professionalmente affermati, in

Storia del cinema italiano 1945/1949,Marsilio/Bianco e nero,

Venice/Rome, 2003

GENTE COSÌ

Director: Fernando Cerchio; screen-play: F. Cerchio, Giovanni Guareschi,Giancarlo Vigorelli, Leonardo Benve -nuti, Giorgio Venturini; cinematogra-phy: Arturo Gallea; editing: RolandoBenedetti; music: Giovanni Fusco; cast:Adriano Rimoldi, Vivi Gioi, Camilo Pi -lotto, Renato De Carmine, Saro Urzì,Alberto Archetti, Nicola La Torre, LuigiTosi, Raf Pindi; production: G. Ven -turini for ICET/Rizzoli; origin: Italy,1949; format: 35mm, b/n; length: 85’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“Gente così by Fernando Cerchio (hereis a Venetian name) counts in thescript, among others, of GiovanniGuareschi at the time of signing theforeground on the ‘Candido’ the week-ly greater political impact and success.It is a film which is still cited among thecases of neo-realism is not recognizedin time, and it therefore expects theconsecration at the hands of somerepentant critic. [...] Gente così had been a movie wantedand defended by Venturini during theMilan period, much to quarrel withRizzoli in order to keep the award toCerchio, which Rizzoli did not want.But how could unseat a friend by thepredilections of Venturini? Cerchio, the

69

thing comes to life, and comes theuncontrollable crowds of tourists.”

Guglielmo Moneti, Luciano Emmer,Editrice Il Castoro, Milan, 1992

CONTARE SULLE PROPRIE FORZE

自力更生

Director: Mario Bernardo; with the col-laboration of: Aldo Cesolini, Cheng WenTung, Chen Jen Tze, Chen Pao Shun,Franco De Masi, Misa Gabrini, Lai IuChi, Amerigo Latin, Luigi Orso, AnnaPlutino, Ferdinando Verde, Wang HuanPaol, the peasants of the brigade MeCha U, the fishermen of West Lake, thePeople's Militia of the City of Ma Lo, thepopulation of Beijing and Shanghai;production: La Guaita Cine matografica;origin: Republic of San Marino, 1972;format: 16mm, col.; length: 90’.DVD (from Digibeta from negative16mm) from Cineteca di Bologna.

“Mario Bernardo was born in Venice in1919. After being partisan commanderduring the War of Liberation, foundedin 1946 in Bologna the Omnia Filmand, soon after, the CREEC (ConsorzioRegionale Emiliano Esercenti Cinema),setting up a regional distribution circuitcome to count 82 rooms. Meanwhile,bring a van itinerant cinema in 16mmin the Apennines countries. He movedto Rome in the early 50s working onscripts and screenplays but soon leftpenniless. He then began to work forthe BNC-Filmico, a laboratory specializ-ing in Italian editions of foreign films: itis the fundamental passage from writ-ing to art.

In the mid-50s, he start his work asdirector of photography (sign, amongothers, Comizi d’amore and Uccellaccie uccellini by Pasolini). Thanks to hisexceptional skills, Bernardo will partic-ipate in the construction of about 400films, including as director, editor andproducer. Bernardo, ‘engineer bychance,’ stood out also in the activityjournalism (based, among other things,the quarterly “Note di tecnica cine-matografica”) and teaching (held shoot-ing chair at CSC for 25 years Rome).Bernardo has filed with the Cineteca diBologna about a hundred of his filmsmaterials (prints, negatives, processingmaterials, fragments ...). Among theboxes of this precious collection, thereare some films made in the early 70sfor the Republic of San Marino. In 1972,San Marino is among the first Westernstates to recognize Red China, andBernard following the delegation of thesmall republic in the first official visit toChinese soil. In addition to mountingan exceptional event reportage, tookthe opportunity to realize the docu-mentary Rely on their own strength,filming the historical sites in Beijing,Hangzhou, Shanghai, and giving us anextraordinary documentation of thephase of collectivization most advancedproven popular in China, culminatingin Cultural revolution.”

Andrea Meneghelli, Dossier MarioBernardo, in Catalogo Il Cinema

Ritrovato 2008, Cineteca di Bologna,Bologna, 2008

68

young editor of Quelli della montagnaby Aldo Verga no, where he hadreceived perhaps the first lesson tersestyle and image care, lesson alsoextended assistance director Cottafavi -here is a far end of the line that unitesthe first two Turin directors Venturini -Cerchio was said works in Venice dur-ing the difficult years of RSI. [...] I insist on remembering Cerchio,because together with Vernuccio andCottafavi, is a typical case of copyrightignored and undervalued. If the weath-er has done justice to Cottafavi, theother two are pending.”

Lorenzo Ventavoli, Pochi, maledetti e subito: Giorgio Venturini alla FERT

(1952-1957), Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Turin, 1992

OFF

ITALIA MIA

“Italia mia, another film without a sub-ject and without actors to find ‘thehumble Italy, with its passions and itsflaws’, becomes the dominant thoughtof Zavattini. [...] Zavattini improves thedesign of Italia mia and proposes toRossellini (December 1952). But it doesnot do anything; Einaudi proposes it asa book series: De Sica should organizea book on Naples, Visconti of Milan,Rossellini on Rome. In the end onlyZavattini will do the first and only vol-ume: Un paese (1955, in collaborationwith the photographer Paul Strand).”

Silvana Cirillo, Una svolta epocale nell’attività di Cesare Zavattini, in CesareZavattini, Totò il buono, Bompiani, 2013

“is more from the reality. And the crit-ics knew immediately. The cinema hasperceived him and Renato Dall'Ara filmconfirms it. Unfortunately the greatRoberto Rossellini was unable to com-plete his wish, a film called Italia mia,which was to open with a seagull fly-ing over Scano Boa. He told me that forhim Italy was the one that he loved.”

G.A. Cibotto in Gian Antonio Cibotto e i vecchi pescatori del suo Delta padano,«Il Mattino di Padova», October 8, 2003

ALLUVIONE“Oreste Palella and Roberto Rosselliniwould have to direct together Alluvione,a 1951 film on the floods of Polesinewhich included as cast Franca Marzi,Silvana Pampanini, Rossano Brazzi andRaf Vallone. ‘La Gazzetta Padana’ ofApril 1, 1952 announced the start offilming at the Ca’ Bianca in Adria, butsince then he heard from again.”

Giancarlo Beltrame, Paolo Romano andFerdinando De Laurentiis (edited by),

Luci sulla città: Rovigo. Sogno di un paesaggio tra cielo e acqua,

Marsilio, Venice, 2007

PARALLEL CONVERGENCES

[LONG VERSION] PAISÀDirector: Roberto Rossellini; story: R.Rossellini, Federico Fellini, Sergio Ami -dei, Marcello Pagliero, Albert Hayes,Klaus Mann; screenplay: R. Rossellini, F.Fellini, S. Amidei; cinematography:Otello Martelli; editing: Eraldo DaRoma; music: Renzo Rossellini; cast:

Carmela Sazio, Dots M. Johnson,Alfonsino, Maria Michi, Gar Moore,Harriet White, Renzo Avanzo, BillTubbs, Dale Edmonds, Allan, Dan, VanLoel, Cigolani; production: R. Rossellinifor O.F.I/Foreign Film Production; ori-gin: Italy/USA, 1946; format: 35mm,b/n; length: 134’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“With Paisà Rossellini is the spirit of theResistance in the broad and inclusivehuman geography. Using a sample itin-erary, leads in successive stages, twodifferent peoples to the recognition ofa common identity, common reasonsfor life and struggle, to experiencehigher death, side by side, for the sameideals. They are mainly the human rea-sons to constitute the force of truth,because the director does not go insearch of the political motivations thatdetermine the behavior of his charac-ters: their suffering, passion and mutu-al respect will unify the plans and dif-ferent ideological assumptions. Themoment Rossellini discovers the collec-tive face of anti unorganized is as if hehad realized that the history of Italy,who continued to live in the rubbleand looked for reconstruction, could,on the basis of a general policy choice,considered redeemed by his sufferingand to remove, as soon as possible, thememory of fascism to look forward to.Although, for the moment, it was cer-tainly not in a position either to predictor to ipotecarlo.”Gian Piero Brunetta, Il cinema neorealista

italiano, Laterza, Bari, 2009

«Paisà is presented in close to the firstMostra (indeed, Manifestazione) d’artecinematografica in Venice, in the post-war, 18 September 1946. The chroniclesof that period insist on this at the lastminute arrival of a copy, in time for asmoke morning projection to the pressat the Malibran theater and then to thepublic at the cinema San Marco, in theafternoon at 16. [...] It is not the firsttime (it was already success with Lanave bianca), and not the last, thatRossellini presents his film at a festivalin closing, as a ‘surprise film’ for adver-tising strategy, perhaps, or because infact, as it would seem in this case, thefilm was released from the laboratory atthe last moment, even ‘wet print,’ pre-sumably for the continued assemblyand synchronization. This also explainshow much of Rossellini’s films (exceptthose television) involves ‘variants’ (or‘second thoughts’ if you prefer)between the version presented at a fes-tival and one out in Italian or foreignsalt, as is the case of Paisà. [...] Theability to test for differences occurredonly in 1998, when the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv in Berlin (the state filmlibrary) did have the Cineteca Naziona -le of Rome, just before I got to direct it,a lavender (positive fine grain proceedsdirectly from the negative) again butmissing the last roller (the last ten min-utes approximately). It did not takelong to realize that it was a differentversion from the one known.”

Adriano Aprà, Le due versione di Paisà, in Stefania Parigi (edited by), Paisà.

Analisi del film, Marsilio, Venice 2005

7170

[RUSHES] SANTA BRIGIDA

Director: Roberto Rossellini; cinematog-raphy: Aldo Tonti; cast: Ingrid Bergman;origin: Svezia, 1952; format: 35mm,b/n; length: 9’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“At the end of 1951 makes Rossellinifilming for a documentary, that has notbeen finished, in the Convento delleSuore dell’Ordine del S.S. Salvatore diSanta Brigida in Piazza Farnese, Rome.It’s called Santa Brigida and showssome take of shots where we see theactress Ingrid Bergman arriving at theconvent, the nuns know and then helpsthem to manufacture apparel packs.The documentary was commissionedby the Swedish Red Cross for victims ofthe flood of Polesine.”

Paolo Micalizzi, Là dove scende il fiume. Il Po e il cinema, Aska Edizioni,

Florence, 2010

72

Italian Cinema Beyond the Wall of Time

73

images themselves, with their soundsare repeated in reverse, with the actorswho continue to speak funny languageeven when you return to reality. Thecaretaker of Cinecittà indicates that thetime is up on a clock that moves thecontrary.”

Ernesto G. Laura (edited by), Storia del cinema italiano 1940/1944,

Marsilio/Bianco e nero, Venice/Rome, 2010

IL DOCUMENTO

Director, editing: Mario Camerini; story:from a comedy by Guglielmo Zorzi;screenplay: M. Camerini, Re natoCastellani, Mario Pannunzio, Ivo Perilli,Mario Soldati; cinematography: ArturoGallea; music: Alessandro Cicognini;cast: Ruggero Ruggeri, Maria Denis,Armando Falconi, Maurizio D’Ancora,Lauro Gazzolo, Mercedes Brignone;production: Giuseppe Amato forSECET/Scalera; origin: Italy, 1939; for-mat: 35mm, b/n; length: 92’.DCP (from 16mm from 35mm) from LaCineteca del Friuli (Fondo Buffatti).

“The screen can not replace the stagewith immobility, with the conventionalscenes and proportions, with the falsityof backgrounds, colors, compositionwhich is also a condition of its ‘poetic’and its justification. [...] Given this,imagine with apprehension that I wentto see Il documento, billed as a come-dy of Zorzi put on screen by Camerini,with Falconi and Ruggeri first actorsand with a nice nest egg of artists, allbut Miss Maria Denis, the playhouse.Well, my fears proved vain: the film is,

in its kind, a perfect thing. [...] It is notonly a caricature of an era, of a worldof lost customs; but it is also and espe-cially the caricature of the way theworld is expressed, suffering, acted,spoke; and then theater, and thoseactors. Because the characters areactors, and as such visas and represent-ed. [...] The comedy ingredients areconventional amiably. There areunscrupulous adventurers who are eat-ing the properties of a naive aristocratwho has a good name and a good andillibatissima daughter; there is the oldaristocratic family butler (Ruggeri) thatgoes to serve in the house of the ring-leader Larussi (Falconi); there is a mys-terious character who has in hand adocument that could send to jail theLarussi and associates, who mysterious-ly dies, and mysteriously disappearsdocument [...]. Of these reasons andCamerini characters he has been ableto use with such obvious simplicity,with such naivete enchanted, with aseriousness so deceptive that a pleasantstory came out, ironic, skeptical, mali-cious, mischievous; but without theaction loses its performance or becomesweak in the episodes, or missing hishonest and entertaining moral.”

Paolo Monelli, «Film», November 4, 1939

[5 MINUTI CON...] TRAGUARDODEGLI ASTRI

Director: Anonymous [Amedeo Castel -lazzi?]; contributions: Mario Camerini,Assia Noris, Corrado D’Errico, LuisaFerida, Goffre do Alessandrini, Giorgio

75

L’INTRUSADirector: Raffaello Matarazzo; story:from the drama by Silvio Zambaldi;screenplay: R. Matarazzo, Piero Pierotti,Gio vanna Pala, Giovanna Soria; cine-matography: Tonino Delli Colli; edit-ing: Mario Serandrei; music: LuigiMalatesta; cast: Amedeo Nazzari, LeaPadovani, Rina Morelli, AndreaChecchi, Pina Bottin, Cesco Baseggio,Nando Bruno; production: ArrigoColombo for Jolly Film/ICS; origin:Italy, 1956; format: 35mm, b/n; length:108’.16mm (from 35mm) from CinetecaBruno Boschetto

“L’intrusa moves on the background ofthe usual stuffy world of the province,that malignant behind the relationshipbetween a doctor and a teacher who hesaved from suicide. Apart from someelement of ideological progressivism(she had not only a former boyfriend,but she became pregnant and had losthis son, but he married the same: weare very distant from the assumption ofCatene), the curiosity is that she it isone of the few ‘crazy bitches’ of theItalian melodrama, so to say I imple-ment for the passion of motherhood.When discovering that they can nothave children adds that instead theman who made her pregnant is goingto have one, his reaction is one possi-ble violence, even here, thanks to thereplacement of Yvonne Sanson withLea Padovani.”

Emiliano Morreale, Così piangevano. Il cinema mélo nell’Italia degli anni

Cinquanta, Donzelli, Rome, 2011

[5 MINUTI CON...] CINECITTÀDirector: Pietro Francisci; cinemato -graphy: Armando Bianchi, RodolfoLombardi; contributions: Guido Notari,Amedeo Nazzari, Alida Valli, Alessan -dro Blasetti, Goffredo Alessandrini,Pietro Francisci, Sandro Pallavicini,Domenico Paolella, Dina Galli, AntonioGandusio, Titina De Filippo, MarioCamerini, Armando Falconi, ClaraCalamai, Amedeo Castellazzi, GiorgioSimonelli, Beniamino Gigli, ElisaCegani, Paola Borboni; production:INCOM; origin: Italy, 1939; format:35mm, b/n; length: 12’.35mm from Istituto Luce.

“The well-known announcer GuidoNotari simulates a service of Cinecittàto achieve in a very short time; beginsa daring series of misadventures, fast-paced involving various stars and direc-tors of: Amedeo Nazzari, Alida Valli,Alessandro Blasetti, Renato Castellani[is actually Amedeo Castel lazzi] ... Thecrew of the INCOM dabs a car in whichare Dina Galli, Antonio Gandusio andTitina De Filippo, then breaks on theset where Mario Camerini makes a filmwith Armando Falconi (Il documento,1939). The producer Peppino Amato,described as one who does not want towaste time, check the set. But the shortfilm is concerned to reveal some tricksand effects of cinema, while in slowmotion we see sketches with PaolaBorboni, Erminio Macario, EmmaGramatica, clips from Abuna Messias(1939) by Goffredo Ales sandrini and IGrandi Magazzini (1939) by Camerini,Beniamino Gigli singing. Finally the

74

Ferroni, Pietro Francisci, CarmineGallone, Laura Solari, Alma Clari,Luisella Beghi, Luigi Freddi, BrunoMussolini, Vittorio Musso lini, SandroPallavicini, Amleto Palermi, Elli Parvo,Carlo Romano, Elio Steiner, OsvaldoValenti, Amedeo Castellazzi [fuoricampo]; production: INCOM; origin:Italy, 1940; format: 35mm, b/n; length:7’.35mm from Istituto Luce.

“Despite efforts by Luigi Freddi to bringup the problems of cinema, these con-tinued to enjoy rather poor attentionand treatment hastily uncritical media,starting with those made especiallyto advertise businesses and realizationsof regime: newsreels and radio sec-tions. [...] As for the newsreels, the privacy ofIstituto LUCE suggests that it can notfind images suitable to talk about cine-ma. One might conclude that the cine-ma proved unfit to propagate itself. Theexception is the opening ceremony ofCinecittà, where, however, it is aboveall the figure of the leader to act towed.If anything, will the newly INCOM(Industria Corti Metraggi), led bySandro Pallavicini, to set aside from1939 onwards a bit of the cinemaspace, following the trail of radio news.Mino Argentieri analyzed two servicesincluded in 1939 in the series 5 minuticon... The first, Traguardo degli astri,describes with typical accents of thegossip columnist a party in the livingrooms of the Excelsior in Rome, organ-ized by the fortnightly ‘Cinema’ inhonor winners of a referendum held

among the readers of the magazineedited by Vittorio Mussolini.”Callisto Cosulich, Il problema del cinema

italiano nella stampa specializzata, in Orio Caldiron (edited by), Storia

del cinema italiano 1934/1939,Marsilio/Bianco e nero,

Venice/Rome, 2006

PANICO! Director: Alberto Pozzetti; cinematog-raphy: Ema nuel Lomiri [EmanuelFiliberto Lomiry], Giuseppe Belloni;musical adaptation: Raffaele Gervasio;cartoons: Ugo Amadoro; production:Sandro Pal lavicini for INCOM; origin:Italy, 1947; format: 35mm, b/n; length:10’. 35mm (or DCP) from Istituto Luce.

The caption opening: “Unjustifiedpanic is often the cause of great calami-ties, sometimes with loss of life. Thisdocumentary advises you never to loseyour temper, relying on the securitymeasures implemented in all civilizedcountries.”

HERMITAGE

Director, screenplay: Carmelo Bene;cinematography: Giulio Albonico; edit-ing: Pino Giomini; music: Vittorio Gel -metti; cast: C. Bene, Lydia Mancinelli;production: Nexus Film; origin: Italy,1968; format: 35mm, col.; length: 24’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“The stage set, the situations and theWell obsessions are all already in place:

77

the objects of the Big Dipper, and UrsaMinor, that is - according to the defini-tion that gives of his ‘trovarobato’ inthe novel Nostra Signora dei Turchi –‘the fixed points of the ritual, such as,for example, geraniums, also withered,candles, spirits, pure alcohol, the ash-tray, the very graduated wine, the mir-ror,’ and ‘the so-called variable objects,in all effects more useful and practicalthan those of Big Dipper, and he usedto almost perennial parts, as fulfillingthe function of variation between thechemical officiating and fixed objects,’which here are also bouquet of roses,heavy curtains, sheets, telephone,wreaths of blue or white roses, letters,picture frames; and then look in themirror with truccature variables with-out recognizing, trudging, almost in astate of somnambulism, among otherobjects, repeating gestures in futileattempt to establish contact; and aboveall confront the woman, mother andmadonna (Lydia Mancinelli, with shorthair like Dreyer’s Joan of Arc, or AnnaKarina in Vivre sa vie, thus also a bitch,but her face sprinkled with gold dust),of which the hero rejects the love thatyearns well (‘enough! It’s over withwho loves me!’, and it trashes thephoto in the toilet at the end); andeven hotel rooms of which confusesthe doors, by falsely sumptuous fur-nishings and vibrant red lights, andcontrasting tiled and cold baths.Flushes mixed Verdi’s music to radiocroaks, voices on and off the field,godardiane alternations of soundfields and reverse shots dumb antici-pate the linguistic experiments that willbe unleashed soon, even if the camera

is content yet fixed and precise shots.”Adriano Aprà, Carmelo Bene oltre

lo schermo, in AA.VV., Per Carmelo Bene, Linea d’Ombra, Milan 1995

[LONG VERSION] NOSTRA SIGNORADEI TURCHIDirector, screenplay: Carmelo Bene;cinematography: Mario Masini; editing:Mauro Contini; music: edited by C.Bene; cast: C. Bene, Lydia Mancinelli,Ornella Ferrari, Anita Masini, RuggeroRuggeri (voice); production: NexusFilm; origin: Italy, 1968; format: 35mm(da 16mm), col.; length: 142’.35mm from CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.

“The epiphany of the work Bene cine-ma is Nostra signora dei Turchi, whichremains to this day the film (only filmso it remains possible this title) moreaffordable Bene and in fact the mosttalked about, even in the exceptionalmonograph edited by Maurizio Grandein 1973, which occupies more than halfof the pages. If they can trace the‘story’, you can tell the productive con-tract with the deception of Nexus Filmthat involved the construction of threeshort documentaries, you can quenchyour thirst at one source, the novelpublished two years earlier and alreadyturned into theater, even to anthropol-ogy from exploration of Salento, thenstill fascinatingly exotic land for Italiancinema. You can chase traces of auto-biographies (the protagonist of thebuilding, of the skulls flowers and sea... to the whole CB gives sight, "eventhe eyes," and everything tends to infin-

76

Band of Angels Wonders from the

Officina Filmclub collection

7978

ity to recollect the eternal and deadseasons, and the present and alive, andthe sound of it ...). Nostra signora deiTurchi is a kaleidoscope of senselessacts of beauty created / found by a man(to extremes, genius or idiot) with thecamera filming the thud of the will. Asthe coeval 2001 by Stanley Kubrick, isan odyssey that has gathered andechoed, in space, in this case exhaust-ed and shattered (like the body of theprotagonist), all the stories of cinema,even those yet to be written. But thecollision, the crash, the film beginswhen Bene puts his hands on the orig-inal negative, accepting the invitationof Luigi Chiarini to shorten the film. Afew small cut here and there, a snip atlong scene in which the protagonistmakes of himself and of his pride twofriars, when theoretical and keystone ofthe film in which the writer rider themartyr become aware of the impossi-bility of living as long as do not youstep outside itself and all its possibledouble, and try to destroy you mustalter mingling with matter.”

Fulvio Baglivi, (Ri)epilogo – 2: non abbiamo altro bene all’infuori di Bene, in F. Baglivi, Maria Coletti (edited by),

Carmelo Bene. Il cinema, oppure no,Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia,

Rome, 2012

11 MINUTI DAL QUADERNO DISTAVROS TORNESDirector: Gianpiero Rizzo; editing:Gianni Centonze; music: Roberto G.Kriscak; cast: Stavros Tornes, Pao loTaviani, Vassilis Vassilikos, Charlottevan Gelder, Giulio Brogi; production:

Studio Nino; origin: Italy, 2016; format:HD, col.; length: 11’.Blu-ray from author.

An anticipation of Il quaderno diStavros Tornes, a preview for I milleocchi. Nearly thirty years after hisdeath, the film parable and humanStavros Tornes, one of the most unusu-al directors of the so-called New GreekCinema: from Italian works to thoseHellenic, from Coatti to Un airone perla Germania, by his trials as an actor infilm to his poems, infinite expectationof the last movie that does not realize.

OFF

MUDUNDU + JESUSThe two also Italian projects by CarlTheodor Dreyer, both remained unfin-ished. Mudundu will be finished byJean-Paul Paulin (and Ernesto Quadro -ne) as L’esclave blanc / Jungla nera(1936).

in low-light conditions easier, it is veryeasy. Moreover, the notion of ‘directdrive’ is total, since the image andsound recorded can be controlled atthe time of registration. [...] So the tapetells us so much what happens to ‘oth-ers’, as what happens to the eye-bodymanifests hand signals through thecamera. The various elements, which inthe film are separate functions that atechnical device back to unity of thework, here they interact, and the tapedoes not tell us much that this interac-tion. The work is identified then withits making, and the document is agroup that lives and works: where lifeand work experience and tape aremoments of a continuous time. Annatestifies of a group marginalized in theafter ’68 Rome: marginalized respect forlife (experiences of reform school,drugs, prison) and respect at work(unemployment, or ‘work’ with anunofficial tool as it is precisely thevideotape). This marginality is deep-ened at all levels, from behavioral tothe political. Although strictly limited -according to the method of film-truths -about what’s going on as it happens,the tape ends up taking on a symbolicvalue. What was pure analysis becomessynthesis.”

Adriano Aprà, mimeographed, April 1975

CIAO RENATO!Director, editing: Paolo Luciani, Cristi naTorelli, Roberto Torelli; production: RaiMovie/Officina Filmclub (Paolo Lu -

ciani, Cristina Torelli, Roberto Torelli);origin: Italy, 2012; format: DV, col andb/n; length: 78’.DVD (from master video) from authors.

In November 2012 Rai Movie promotesa tribute to the work of Renato Nicolini,undisputed protagonist of Italian cul-ture. A tribute to the architect, intellec-tual, an artist who was councilor forculture of the City of Rome from 1976to 1985, changing the cultural policiesof his city with the invention of theRoman Summer, a still studied model.

“Ciao Renato! is a tribute to RenatoNicolini who with Paolo Luciani andCristina Torelli we created for the RomeFilm Festival, to remember a characterwho has changed the culture not onlyin Rome but throughout Italy. It was akey figure of the twentieth century, thathas upset the canon of high culture andlow culture. [...] Renato has been a controversial figure,because unfortunately in his life he wasrecognized the role that he could nothave. It was not the mayor of Rome, heshould have been; was no Minister ofCulture and it could have been ...Unfortunately has been marginalized,because it was different. It was differ-ent as the Estate Romana was differentfrom all the things that there had beenin Rome. So we wanted to do an hourof archive material fitting to pay tributeto a Roman in front of which Romemust remove the cap.” (Roberto Torelli)

81

CLARODirector: Glauber Rocha; cinematogra-phy: Mario Gianni; editing: CristinaTullio Al tan; music: Samba de roda,Maculelê, Bellini (La casta diva), Villa-Lobos (Bac chiana n° 5), Vivaldi, Joãode Barro, India sung by Gal Costa andseveral Brazilian and Italian folk tunes;cast: Juliet Berto, Tony Scott, CarmeloBene, Mackay, Louis Waldon, BetinaBest, Yvone Taylor, Francisco Serrão,Cachorro, Janine Janet, Luciana Liguori,Anna Carini, Glauber Rocha and theinhabitants of Rome; production: Al -berto Marucchi and Mario Tamburellafor DPT-SPA; origin: Italy, 1975; format:35mm, col.; length: 110’.35mm from La Cineteca del Friuli (Fon -do Ciro Giorgini/Officina Filmclub).

“Claro is a clear film, especially if wewonder where Glauber Rocha wants toget. To tell a story, certainly not, unlessit is the eternal story of an equally eter-nal city (the film is set in Rome andsome of its sequences, on location, inthe most monumental sites of the city).[...] I rather think that Claro does nothave a key, only the big smashed andclosed doors, on prospects that Rochatakes care not to spell her: those ofWestern decadence. It is perhaps thisone his way agitated, angry, for simplyexpressing his saudade at the end offive years of exile: Brazil lacks, it isclear, and try to recreate it in theRoman slums. [...] Lysergic? If anythingshiny, anyway moved by the energy ofwho you lose to dwell too long out ofhis land, in the pride of pure poetry,what the even greater pride would not

allow him to want to take action in hiscity? A new form, therefore, the conflictbetween poetry and politics alreadyexpressed in Terra en transe.”Sylvie Pierre (edited by), Glauber Rocha.

Textes et entretiens de Glauber Rocha,Cahiers du cinéma, Paris, 1987

ANNADirector: Alberto Grifi, MassimoSarchielli; screenplay: M. Sarchielli,Roland Knauss, A. Grifi; cinematogra-phy, editing: A. Grifi; cast: Anna, A.Grifi, M. Sarchielli, R. Knauss, VincenzoMazza, Stefano Cattarossi, RaoulCalabrò, Louis Waldon, AnnabellaMiscuglio, Pilar Castel, Jane Fonda; ori-gin: Italy, 1975; format: 16mm (fromvideo), b/n; length: 225’.16mm from La Cineteca del Friuli (Fon -do Ciro Giorgini/Officina Filmclub).

“After seeing Anna by Alberto Grifi andMassimo Sarchielli it can be said thatthe cinema-truth, as overall experience,is dead, and that this videotape is thebeginning, so to speak, of a new ‘art’ orbetter, constitutes the most convincingapproach and productive with a newmedium, the videotape in fact, that thecinema-truth has only anticipate,assume, to dream, but within the limitsof categorical another medium, the cin-ema, that somehow it was forced in itspossibilities. [...] The videotape, for its technical charac-teristics, overcomes the difficulties fromthe beginning that the film was able tosolve with special inventions to get animage and a synchronous sound, even

80

83

BELLA DI NOTTE / BELLE DE NUIT

Director, testo, editing, voice: LucianoEmmer; cinematography: Elio Bisigna -ni; music: Gustav Mahler; production:Film 7 International for Rai2; origin:Italy, 1997; format: 35mm, col.; length:33’.35mm from La Cineteca del Friuli (Fon -do Ciro Giorgini/Officina Filmclub).

“Luciano Emmer, the director accusedof being art’s profaner, back breakingwork. He was the only Italian authorwho for seventy years the art has pene-trated, understood, interpreted and dis-seminated by all means and languages.Emmer resumes his goddess ever in anemblematic film: Bella di notte (1997),rêverie nocturne inside the BorgheseGallery in Rome. Produced by RAI-2, onthe occasion of the reopening of thehistoric villa and Roman collection, theold director gambling and imposes hisauthorial signature: no interviews andpropaganda to sponsor or critics insearch of visibility. ‘When the directorof the Museum of Villa Borghese gaveme the opportunity to enter at night inempty rooms, I found myself with avery different spirit than my previousfilms. I followed a solitary journey – arêverie nocturne – revealing, with asmall room in the lighthouse room, theworks of art that had appeared in myeyes. It was a personal search of theemotions aroused me the works. It wasa personal search of the emotionsaroused me the works.’ Peculiar choos-ing Emmer contact the Cardinal Bor ghe -se, focusing on the theme of collecting.The director strikes and sculpts with

light blades paintings and statues infus-ing the object light energy of cinema.”

Paola Scremin (edited by), Parole dipinte. Il cinema sull’arte di Luciano

Emmer, Cineteca di Bologna, Bologna, 2010

82

One or two things in a thousandNotes on mise-en-scèneby Sergio M. Grmek Germani

Premio Anno uno. To Be: Vlado Škafar

Beloved and Rejected. Migrants, refugees, victims of wars, escape beyond walls and fences in Adenauer’s era Germany

From Compassion to Love

Bodies and Places

Cinema of Poetry, from Friuli to Sicily

Self-Portraits in the Mirror: Jonas Mekas and Jackie Raynal

Everything will disappear. Everything will be reborn. Tribute to Marina Pierro and Walerian Borowczyk

Nobody’s Children. Italian films collected by Simone Starace, II

Small World, Big Shadow (The Venetians are crazy, I)

Italian Cinema Beyond the Wall of Time

Band of Angels. Wonders from the Officina Filmclub collection

6

15

25

33

41

43

51

53

55

61

73

79

Contents