Article by Nicolò Cifarelli
Translation by Linh Carrara
The cold afternoon sun illuminates the pulsating arteries of Rome: in this body, instead of red blood cells, people flow, each with their own past, experiences and aspirations.
Continua la lettura di “N-EGO”, BY ELEONORA DANCOArticle by Ludovico Franco
Translation by Martina Marino
In the opening lines of Swann’s Way (or The Way by Swann’s), Marcel Proust remembers how, as a child, he loved watching the images projected by the magic lantern: out-and-out apparitions that told stories, like a wavering and ephemeral glass wall. On a foggy hilltop near the border with Iran, the silhouettes of a man and a boy on horseback stand out: the young boy is checking a laptop screen, trying to connect to the internet to purchase the necessary equipment to revive an old analog projector, unearthed by a former projectionist from the USSR. However, the essential element needed to make the magic lantern work is missing: the light, provided by a simple yet elusive lightbulb.
Continua la lettura di “LE RETOUR DU PROJECTIONNISTE”, BY ORKHAN AGHAZADEHArticle by Francesca Strangis
Translation by Federica Lozito
What would one sacrifice for a few crumbs of love after a lifetime of starvation? Perhaps even one’s own freedom. Madame Ida investigates the consequences of lack of love through a tale steeped in tragedy and rich with symbolism.
Continua la lettura di “MADAME IDA”, BY JACOB MØLLERArticle by Silvia De Gattis
Translation by Giuditta Portaro
The life of little Emilio (Marco Fiore) moves between two different dimensions: on one hand, the concrete everyday life of a child in Fascist Italy in 1936; on the other, the adventures experienced by his hero, Sandokan, in the books his uncle gives him. But what happens when these two dimensions intertwine?
Continua la lettura di “HO VISTO UN RE”, BY GIORGIA FARINAArticle by Orazio Oztas
Translation by Federica Lozito
“…(the nuns) taught us there are two ways through life: the way of Nature and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow.” This quote from Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life could limpidly sum up the story of the shepherd Zhenping, the protagonist of the documentary The Shepherd, if the word “grace” were replaced with the word “love.”
Leggi tutto: “THE SHEPHERD”, BY YUFEI ZHAOThe vast grasslands of Inner Mongolia provide the background for this intimate human parable that encapsulates, in its poverty and cinematic minimalism, a crucial moment in one man’s life. In his first medium-length film, Yufei Zhao directs – with a dry and algid black-and-white – the monotonous life of the shepherd, who takes animals out to pasture every day; these creatures fill his loneliness and become his only company besides his elderly mother, the only person he interacts with daily. The friends he used to spend time with are now married, and the two brothers who used to live with him have now passed away. The resetting of this household’s life rhythm is suddenly set in motion again by an interference created by the arrival of his still-living brother, who comes to visit, along with his wife, the family in these endless, uninhabited areas. The visit disrupts their habits: in a place as unfamiliar to them as a restaurant, the brother proposes that Zhenping find another woman to settle down with. To thus follow that way of love, a way the shepherd has not followed for years.
However, Zhenping’s life is deeply rooted in nature by now: framed by the hills, the daily walk with his sheep remains the happiest, most enlivening prospect compared to a new path – or life – to be taken, with all the obstacles and dark pitfalls it might hold for him. For a man experiencing old age, this darkness is no longer bearable; as a result, he will wait patiently and painfully for the flow of life to reach its end.
Article by Giorgia Andrea Bergamasco
Translation by Vittorio Cavalli
I’m Not Everything I Want to Be is a biographical documentary in the second level: through the overlap of an extensive photographic archive and meticulously written personal diaries, the film retraces, step by step, from 1986 to the present day, the unceasing search for identity by Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková.
Continua la lettura di “I’M NOT EVERYTHING I WANT TO BE”, BY KLÁRA TASOVSKÁArticle by Carlotta Profico
Translation by Martina Marino
A Man Imagined is an intimate and painful portrait of Lloyd, a homeless man with schizophrenia, who recounts his life from his childhood, moving between reality and imagination.
Continua la lettura di “A MAN IMAGINED”, BY MELANIE SHATZKY, BRIAN M. CASSIDYArticle by Pietro Torchia
Translation by Laura Cattani
If during the 42nd edition of the Turin Film Festival, dedicated to Marlon Brando, the audience had the opportunity to see again the most famous characters played by the actor on the big screen, the festival chose for its closure a film that abandons the vision of Brando as an actor, to show him as a person.
Leggi tutto: “WALTZING WITH BRANDO”, BY BILL FISHMANWaltzing with Brando chronicles a specific time in the life of Brando (Billy Zane), who at the peak of his career in the 1970s, decided to build a resort on a Tahitian island, collaborating with architect Bernand Judge (Jon Heder). This work explores the personality of the well-known actor, who is portrayed here as an ordinary man (or, at least, in a stubborn attempt to live life as if he were), a lover of nature and quietness, with the great dream of staying in Tahiti forever. Disdainful, ironic, often polemical, this version of Brando manages to entertain since he is put on the same level as the viewer, without any reverence.
Hollywood’s here is only a distant glare, and it is sometimes evoked from the actor’s critical point of view, which rails against it denouncing its sloth and false myths. Nonetheless, it is not able to reach the paradisiacal shores where Brando spends his days. Even in the few scenes set on the set-opening a glimpse into a wry, spontaneously talented, extraordinarily affable Brando-the industrial logics do not seem to undermine the playful atmosphere typical of Tahitian scenes.
The real protagonist, however, is Bernard Judge, characterized by a social awkwardness that is, at times, overly exaggerated. The meta-cinematic irreverence entrusted to him-often addressing the audience directly, breaking the fourth wall-is weakly attuned to the concrete atmosphere of the film. Above all, it further exasperates a character who suffers mercilessly (albeit programmatically) from the comparison with Brando, who is instead endowed with a subtle irony congenial to the narrative and is brought to life thanks to the striking resemblance that Billy Zane intercepts.
The entertaining stories of the main characters are framed in real postcards, tinged with warm colors, showing a cozy and warm Tahiti. However, although the film cheers and hits the mark with its sharp political critiques, the story often seems to get stuck in unnecessarily stretched subplots, impoverishing the main plot, which ultimately lacks strength and substance.
Article by Greta Maria Sorani
Translation by Linh Carrara
It is impossible not to feel perplexed after seeing AmicheMai (2024) by Maurizio Nichetti, the director, screenwriter and actor best known for his surreal comedy, he returned to directing twenty-three years after his last film Honolulu Baby (2001) with a comedy on the road that sees two protagonists played by Angela Finocchiaro and Serra Yilmaz.
Continua la lettura di “AMICHEMAI”, BY MAURIZIO NICHETTIArticle by Elisa Gnani
Translation by Silvia Matera
We are rarely forgiving with Italian fiction filmmaking. We tend to consider it like a box full of unassuming or mediocre products, but films like Il corpo prove us wrong.
Continua la lettura di “IL CORPO”, BY VINCENZO ALFIERIArticle by Alessandra Sottini.
Translation by Irene Pezzini.
(Sexual) identity and love. When these planes of emotional and subjective experience intertwine with each other during adolescence, inevitably everything becomes amplified and confused. And when the awareness that comes with maturity, you either come to terms with yourself or you remain in a limbo.
Continua la lettura di “DUINO”, BY JUAN PABLO DI PACE AND ANDRÉS PEPE ESTRADAArticle by Alessandro Pomati.
Translation by Alessandra Rapone.
An informer for the armed wing of the Argentine dictatorship in 1978, called Ulrich, works with images: photographic images or those created by amateur film cameras. This may be a didactic detail, since the way the director Emiliano Serra (in his first fiction feature film) ‘uses’ his main character, in particular the way he captures and defines him in the writing, makes him, in turn, a ‘camera’: the narrative proceeds only when he is present, and the viewer sees and hears only what Ulrich sees and hears. Furthermore, the impassivity of the protagonist’s face (played by Gabriel Rosas) and the monochord setting of his voice, able to read both a confidential report and an article about the upcoming football World Cup with the same intonation, emphasize the idea of a coldness that only a machine or an inanimate object could have. The eyes, not surprisingly, are the only expressive feature.
Continua la lettura di “CORRESPONSAL”, BY EMILIANO SERRAThe press conference presenting the 42nd edition of the Torino Film Festival was held in the setting of Villa Miani in Rome. In the presence of the president of the National Cinema Museum, Enzo Ghigo, and its director Carlo Chatrian, the newly installed artistic director Giulio Base announced the festival’s program under the intense and magnetic gaze (printed on a poster placed behind him) of Marlon Brando from Last Tango in Paris, chosen as the poster for the new edition. And perhaps it isn’t a coincidence that precisely an interpretation of the Hollywood rebel star directed by a master of Italian cinema was chosen as the guiding image of the kermesse, given the new direction’s attention to America and Italy, as would be confirmed by the large number of guests and titles (both first and second works, which have always been the privileged object of the Turin event, as well as restorations) from the two countries.
Continua la lettura di THE PRESS CONFERENCE OF 42° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL (NOVEMBER 22-30, 2024)
