The “minestrone” (“melting pot”), which Steve Della Casa has mentioned many times on his last year in office before passing over the direction to Giulio Base, doesn’t refer to one of the titles of the retrospective section dedicated to Sergio Citti, rather to the result of the selection made by the manager and his staff. It’s not a miscellany that risks displeasing anyone, but a compact and consistent organism, composed of films and different activities – masterclasses, unscheduled events, talk shows and conferences – which dialogues with each other because of both affinity and opposition, always having filmmaking as their only essential reference.
Il “minestrone” che Steve Della Casa – all’ultimo anno di mandato prima di lasciare la direzione a Giulio Base – ha più volte citato non si riferisce a uno dei titoli che compongono la retrospettiva dedicata a Sergio Citti, bensì al risultato della selezione attuata dal direttore insieme ai suoi collaboratori. Non una miscellanea che rischierebbe di scontentare chiunque, ma un organismo compatto e omogeneo, composto da film e diverse attività – masterclass, eventi fuori programma, talk e convegni – che risuonano l’un l’altro sia per affinità che per opposizione, avendo sempre come unico indispensabile referente il cinema.
Il ritorno in sala, la resistenza, il recupero della memoria
Annunciato la scorsa settimana durante la conferenza stampa al Cinema Massimo e in partenza il 26 novembre, il Torino Film Festival farà un grande ritorno in sala, dopo la scorsa edizione interamente online. Con i suoi 181 titoli selezionati tra più di 4500 opere visionate, il Festival si propone non solo di continuare il proficuo dialogo con i suoi affezionati, sempre più esigenti e preparati, ponendo l’attenzione sul cinema di ricerca, la sperimentazione e la promozione di autori emergenti, ma anche di instaurare un rapporto con il grande pubblico.
Nobody would expect that something frightening could happen in a safe place but that’s what happens in this film, an anti-horror.
The director Chris Peckover prefers bright lights and colours, unlike the classic horror movie. His aim is to create an atmosphere that wouldn’t anticipate any scary event.
I termini “safe neighborhood” designano in America la vita in quartiere sicuro. Nessuno si aspetta che qualcosa di spaventoso possa accadere in posto sicuro, ma è proprio quanto avviene nel film, un horror antihorror.
Il regista Chris Peckover predilige luci forti e colori vivaci, diversamente dai consueti film horror. Il suo intento è quello di creare un’atmosfera che non facesse presagire eventi spaventosi.
La lingua dei furfanti è l’ultimo film di Elisabetta Sgarbi, presentato in anteprima assoluta nella sezione Festa Mobile al 34° Torino Film Festival. L’opera si ispira al libro La Sistina dei poveri di Giovanni Reale.
“Un film ininterrotto, questo” – dice Elisabetta Sgarbi -, “che mi segue da anni. Anzi da cui sono inseguita da anni, da prima di conoscere la Valle Camonica, da prima di conoscere Romanino: da quando mio zio Bruno, mia madre Rina, e poi mio fratello Vittorio, si arrampicavano sin lassù, precedendomi. Così che questo film, così personale nei modi, mi sembra una strana biografia familiare, un mio nascosto romanzo di formazione, che ho condiviso con un altro amico e compagno di avventure, Giovanni Reale.”
L’interesse di Elisabetta Sgarbi è quindi rivolto a Girolamo Romanino e torna in Valle Camonica, dopo il suo lavoro sulla Via Crucis di Cerveno di Beniamino Simoni, avendo in mente le dense parole di Testori, e presenti le puntuali ricostruzioni di Giovanni Reale (che dimostrano la profonda conoscenza della materia di fede che aveva Romanino).
Elisabetta Sgarbi
Giovanni Testori scriveva: “a Pisogne, a Breno, a Bienno Romanino tiri a far ‘cagnara’, non v’ha dubbio alcuno. Egli sembra costringere i suoi personaggi a venire sulla scena a furia di calci nel sedere; e non è meraviglia che, una volta lì, essi, tra impetuosa incapacità a organizzarsi, in lingua e vergogna, finiscano col gonfiar tutto; a cominciare dalle loro stesse membra per finire alle parole che ruttan fuori quasi nubi di fumetti odoranti d’osteria, e alle piume dei cappellacci, che si rizzano, unte e bisunte, come quelli di tacchini incazzati.”
La regista assume come oggetto del proprio lavoro il ciclo di affreschi che il pittore realizzò tra il 1532 e il 1541 in tre chiese a Pisogne, Breno e Bienno in provincia di Brescia, si muove tra le case e gli abitanti dei tre paesi che Romanino aveva osservato a lungo e concentra l’attenzione sui dettagli nascosti dei dipinti.
Elisabetta Sgarbi sottolinea quanto siadi fondamentale importanza la voce narrante Toni Servillo, il cui timbro caldo, unito alle doti interpretative, riesce a “far parlare i personaggi” degli affreschi e ad esaltare sfumature e risvolti rappresentativi. Anche la musica di Franco Battiato si inserisce perfettamente in questo viaggio di scoperta.
Alla conferenza stampa di oggi era presente il regista di Trasfiguration, Michael O’Shea.
Nel film Trasfiguration vengono citati altri horror con lo stesso soggetto, il vampiro ad esempio Twilight di Catherine Hardwicke e Lasciami entrare di Tomas Alfredson. Ma l’obiettivo del regista non è quello di onorare questi film ma più che altro riprodurre il ritratto del serial killer, l’istinto di uccidere serialmente.
Si è svolta, negli affollatissimi spazi Rai di Via Verdi, la conferenza stampa dedicata alla commedia italiana Slam – Tutto per una ragazza, uno dei titoli di punta della sezione Festa Mobile. Hanno risposto alle numerose domande dei giornalisti il regista Andrea Molaioli, le produttrici Francesca Cima e Paola Malanga e gli attori Ludovico Tersigni, Barbara Ramella e Jasmine Trinca, la quale è anche madrina di questa edizione del festival. Continua la lettura di “SLAM – Tutto per una ragazza” di Andrea Molaioli→
Si è svolta oggi la conferenza stampa di chiusura della 33° edizione del Festival, condotta dalla direttrice Emanuela Martini, con interventi di Paolo Damilano e Alberto Barbera.
Damilano si dice molto soddisfatto dell’edizione appena conclusa perché è stata coinvolta tutta la città confermando quindi il fatto che il TFF è un festival metropolitano. Stupefacente l’affluenza degli spettatori nelle sale che cresce di anno in anno, nonostante il Festival abbia luogo nel mese di Novembre, già carico di numerosi eventi. Ora l’obiettivo è quello che il Festival diventi di importanza internazionale.
Article by: Danila Prestifilippo Translation by: Roberto Gelli
Not only was Suffragette shown yesterday evening to inaugurate 33th TFF, but also the film was the protagonist of the first press conference, which took place this morning. Film director Sarah Gavron, screenwriter Abi Morgan and one of its producers Faye Ward answered journalists’ questions and explained the film goals and the choices they made, in order to create the short film.
Muad (Carey Mulligan), a female worker, is the protagonist. She is a fictional character and fights together with other women, who represent really existed historical feminists like Emmeline Pankhurst (Merylin Streep). As director Gavron pointed out, the aim of this semihistorical approach was to make a connection between the women, who were given the mocking name Suffragettes and started their battle for their right to vote hundred years ago and modern women, who are still struggling with salary discrepancy, sexual violence and for their right to children protection and tutoring.
Suffragettes social movement has fought for fifty years but, if it is true that the first forty years had been a pacific struggle, in the following sixteen months the fight became more violent and cruel and almost none knows about it. The absence of films that tell us about the violence these courageous women had to endure, played a great role in persuading Faya Ward and Alison Owen to produce the film. Faya Ward stated: “We wanted the public to be aware of the importance of the sacrifices and the success related to Suffragettes fight. We also wanted to underline how their results are effective in nowadays society. We have tried to give modern spectators some contact points, in order for women not only to be politically active, but also to encourage them to be and become what they really feel they are or they could be. Our attempt was to give voice to those, who were not yet given their chance on the big screen.”
Abi Morgan, who had already been the screenwriter of movies such as The Iron Lady, emphasized that the challenge was to choose a really meaningful example of woman’s life and be able to put it in a precise historical context. She said: “On the one hand the character of Muad underlines the role of lots of passive supporters who became activists, on the other hand it investigates the reasons which persuaded women like her to put their jobs, their families and their homes at risk, in the name of a civil right”. The film focuses on the political matter and puts in the foreground these courageous protagonists, so the decision to not examine in depth personal stories was due to the fact that there are not enough literary or movie material at disposal, to which one can refer to. With reference to that, Morgan added that it was much more important to end the film with information about Saudi Arabia and its 2015 law concerning women right to vote only if accompanied by men, rather than to think at some sort of dramatization of Maud in the Hollywood style.
Sarah Gavron gave some further meaningful figures: “Still today, 66 million of women worldwide have no right to vote, 2/3 are illiterate and only 22% hold public offices. It says that the face of poverty is female and unfortunately these figures confirm it”.
The film’s aim is not only political and historical, it concerns the social matter too by denouncing and preventing the high young people abstaining rate, above all among women. Director Gavron told about the reaction of most of the female audience attending Suffragette’s introduction meetings. As she had hoped, after seeing the film, they expressed their wish to vote again because it made them aware of the sacrifices made by British feminist movement. She also reported that the troupe film (almost completely composed by women) wanted to give a clear signal during the film shooting, so they symbolically demonstrated against government by obtaining the permission to film in the House of Parliament in London, that same institutional place, which had declared against women right to vote.
Asked about a possible way to increase female presence in all sectors, starting from institutional offices, Abi Morgan answered: “We have to introduce the concept of positive discrimination and keep insisting about the importance women have within a context implying equality of the sexes. Geena Daves said “See in order to Be”: we need to have a radical attitude, to leverage the mass media but, in order to be successful, women complicity is essential”.
Faye Ward ended the press conference by making a consideration about the fact that Suffragette is a film of women who fight for their right to vote but “today the concept of fight may imply different ways. Each one of us can be what he wants to be, and this is true for both genders and all races. It is enough that we find our own voice and utter our words in every place, in political institutions or other kind of institutions.
Young, lively, dynamic and, I would add, confident.
These are the adjectives that were most frequently heard during the dynamic and cheerful press conference for the second biggest Italian movie event of the year. This 33rd edition of TFF was opened by the Saxophone Ensemble of Conservatoire G. Verdi in hall 2 of Cinema Massimo playing the famous Indiana Jones theme song, which was enthusiastically cheered by journalists and representatives of the most important Turin institutions.
Esibizione dell’Ensable di sassofoni
Young is probably the most appropriate word to describe the TFF, since the work presented are often the first, second, or at most third of their directors, who are usually independent. The section “Onde”, in particular, with its co-curator Roberto Manassero, has always dealt with extreme innovation, both thematic and technical. As usual, this year “Onde” selected 15 films among different formats, Super 8 mm film, Super 16, VHS, digital films and videoart contaminations. The search for innovation has also been confirmed by TFF Doc’s curator, Davide Oberto, who explained that “all sections are based of new independent talents to be explored”.
Maurizio Braccialarghe, Emanuela Martini e Paolo Damilano
Enthusiasm marked every speech during the press conference, included that of Director Emanuela Martini, who started by pointing out TFF’s several partnerships with important institutions of Turin, which had been established in the past or in recent years and will be part of the event this year too.
Among them, she underlined the collaboration with Circolo dei Lettori and RAI. The local cultural centre wil host a two-day pre-festival event focusing on science fiction readings. (Pincio racconta Dick and 1984) whereas the Italian public television broadcaster RAI will welcome TFF staff within its historical buildings and will be promoting the event during the festival by broadcasting a self-produced spot on its channels. The new director of RAI headquarter in Turin, Pietro Grignani, confirmed how essential such a concrete collaboration is, being both partners cultural companies and sharing a common identity. Paolo Damilano talked about a “metropolitan” festival, in the sense that it wil get the whole city talking about cinema” and, speaking of that, Maurizio Braccialarghe, Councillor for Culture of the city of Turin, confirmed the constant tendency to make Turin a city of arts and evolution of techniques. particularly when it comes to cinema. As usual, the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, represented by its President, Patrizia Sandretto, is also on the front line amongst collaborations with TFF and this year it will even curate and host a subsection of the “Onde” section, ARTRUM: short films of a phantasmatic nature set in post-apocalyptic landscapes, all relating to contemporary art.
Patrizia Sandretto, Emanuela Martini, Pietro Grignani
After introducing TFF’s several important partners, the press conference came to the heart of the matter: a short review of the festival movies and their connected events.
Aside from what had already been publicly disclosed, such as the homage to Orson Welles , the pre-opening film by Pietro Marcello and the opening film Suffragette, both the Director and the two curators of the film festival revealed a lot of information about this edition. There will be 15 films competing this year, 4 of which are Italian. For the section Festa Mobile, the Gran Premio Torino will be assigned to the English director and screenwriter Terence Davies for his Sunset Song. In the same section the artistic director made special mention of the movie by Gianni Zanasi La felicità è un sistema complesso (Happiness is a difficult system) and the main actress Hadas Yaron, awarded as best leading actress in Venezia film festival and Torino film festival 32 playing in Felix et Meirà.
There will also be the Cipputi Prize, celebrating 20 years from its foundation, and this will go to Francesca Comencini for her short feature movie In fabbrica (In a factory). The Maria Adriana Polo Lifetime Achievement Award will go to Lorena Mazzetti. Two of her films, K and Together will be played during the festival. This year the guest director will be Julian Temple, who loves Torino film festival and used his latest movie The ecstasy of Wilko Johnson (guitarist of the band Dr. Feelgood, terminally ill with cancer, saved at the eleventh hour by an operation) as a starting point to regroup seven movies, all linked together by a macro theme: Questioni di vita e di morte, where the protagonists are exactly these two unavoidable presences, which make human beings just what they are. “About dystopia and surreal” are the words that best define the retrospective, which is starting in this edition and will be continuing in the next one: Cose che verranno. La terra vista dal cinema, under the direction of Emanuela Martini, is the section dedicated to science fiction and to impossible or catastrophically future worlds, where in the battle between utopia and antiutopia, is the second one which unluckily wins. Davide Oberto, the curator of TFF doc, then talked in detail about the themes of the films proposed for the Festival. In addition to the usual subdivision between International.doc and Italian.doc, the will be a focus on Mediterranean, seen not only as tragic and a protagonist in the current affairs, but also as a source of creativity (9 films in this subsection). In addition, there will be several special events such as screening of Fondo Mossina Miss Cinema shot on 16mm that shows us unexpected portraits of hopeful young people from 1942 to 1952 and the screening of two Chantal Ackerman’s films.
Finally, the Director of TorinoFilmLab Savina Neirotti presented the 8 selected films and clearly restated the importance of the didactic aim that lies at the basis of this creative community. Pride of place was also enjoyed by the restored versions of Terrore nello spazio and Tragica Alba a Dongo, a short film that was once banned and thought lost, which portrays the final hours of Mussolini in Dongo, in a quick overview presented by Emanuela Martini.
Liveliness and dynamism are the adjectives that best describe the sponsor of the event, Chiara Francini. The actress was specially appointed taking into consideration the image this festival aims to convey for its 33rd edition. The awareness of last year’s big success (which made it possible to have 11 theaters available this year) gives the organizers of this festival the right confidence and the possibility to rely on a widespread public approval.
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