Article by Niccolò Buttigliero
Translated by Lorenzo Papa and Elena Soldà
Bipolar inaugurates the new section of the Torino Film Festival called “Incubator”, a new space dedicated to idiosyncratic gazes, to what cannot be pigeonholed. A feverish creative buzz that Queena Li perfectly conveys in her movie.
Continua la lettura di “BIPOLAR” BY QUEENA LIArticle by Francesco Dubini
Translated by Federica Maria Briglia
The film director looks at the empty flat where he has lived for twenty-five years. It is for sale, it is bare. The walls, empty and livid, evoke memories, raise deep investigations through the memories. The movie begins with an empty house that fills itself, in the half-light, with the past childhood of those who lived there. Presented in the section “International competition.Doc” at the TFF39, Marko Grba Singh’s documentary reaches a powerful level of intimacy. Being almost a cinematographic biography, Rampart grasps and re-elaborates the director’s personal history and with it a painful extract of the history of his country: the war that, like a sudden storm, striked Belgrado on March 24th of 1999.
Continua la lettura di “RAMPART” BY MARKO GRBA SINGHArticle by Lisa Cortopassi
Translated by Rebeca Tirgovetu
Extraneous Matter – Complete Edition starts as an intimist movie with a “modest” (but steady) black and white 4:3 format and the familiar image of a bonsai, followed by a close-up of a sleeping girl who, once she has woken up, makes herself some coffee. Later the film, once the episodic nature is revealed, unexpectedly expands its gaze and leaves the domestic dimension of the girl’s house (who is not the main character) to turn to other characters and to the big city. In this way, it extends its reflection to a universal dimension deeply related to the demons of the contemporaneity.
Continua la lettura di “EXTRANEOUS MATTER – COMPLETE EDITION” BY KENICHI UGANAArticle by Alessandro Pomati
Translated by Giulia Baldo
The Chadian word “Lingui” implies the precept of harmonic cohabitation between the members of a community. It is not specified by how many members said community should be constituted, and the harmony ruling their cohabitation can be broken by various types of factors. In the case of Amina (Achouackh Abakar), a hawker who sells baskets made from wire netting, and of her daughter Maria (Rihane Khalil Ario), the factor is the unwanted pregnancy of the latter, which could potentially destroy their lives. On the one hand, the terror of suffering ostracism from the conservative Muslim community which they are part of, on the other hand the prospect, even more terrifying, of the girl having an abortion against her will. Despite the apparent inability of achieving such a venture, Maria is determined not to keep the baby, and Amina will not be able to remain by her side.
Continua la lettura di “LINGUI” BY MAHAMAT-SALEH HAROUNArticle by Giulia Seccia
Translated by Federica Maria Briglia
Mariangela Ciccarello’s movie, shown in the “Italiana.doc” section, presents itself as a documentary that follows the daily life of two actresses, Angela and Paola. It is focused on their rehearsals of dialogues about the mythical characters of Ulysses, Circe and Calypso. However, the dimension of reality constantly and gradually overflows into a dreamlike dimension, enveloping the protagonists’ bodies and fading their contours along with their words, especially when they act. In those moments, the Italian language of their dialogues mixes with the Neapolitan dialect of their considerations on the mythical characters.
Continua la lettura di “CALYPSO” BY MARIANGELA CICCARELLOArticle by Enrico Nicolosi
Translated by Elena Soldà, Lorenzo Papa
With “Bergman Island”, the French director Mia Hanen-Løve made a film that turns into a deep (self)reflection on the creative process of the artist, taking up the themes dear to her and questioning her style of screenwriting. To do this, she creates a real alter ego, which has the features of Chris Sanders (Vicky Krieps), director and screenwriter. Together with her husband and filmmaker Tony (Tim Roth), Chris spends a summer writing her next film on the Swedish island of Fårö, famous residence of Ingmar Bergman.
Continua la lettura di “BERGMAN ISLAND” BY MIA HANSEN-LØVEArticle by Michelangelo Morello
Translated by Martina Rosso
“Per gli umani non c’è nessuna cosa reale se non è raccontata”
“To humans, nothing is real if it’s not told”
Alessandro Baricco
The village elders gather around the fire to tell ancient country stories that have influenced popular culture, and which are now shrouded in the mantle of legend. They evoke and give life to mythical characters, men who have challenged princes and kingdoms in the name of justice, freedom and love and who have distinguished themselves for their virtues or for having committed “deeds”.
Continua la lettura di “RE GRANCHIO” BY ALESSIO RIGO DE RIGHI E MATTEO ZOPPISArticle by Elio Sacchi
Translated by Mirko Giumentaro
Laura Samani starts from the base elements with which she gets her hands dirty: water and blood, milk and tears. But above all, she draws on the rituals and popular beliefs of a fishing village in Friuli, an area far from the advent of “progress” and “modernity” (light bulbs seem like a joke), suspended in an almost ahistorical, mythical, and archaic time. Agatha’s stillborn daughter cannot be baptized and she is therefore destined to wander eternally in limbo, unless her mother sets off to reach the distant and cold Val Dolais, where there is a sanctuary of breath where the miracle takes place: the stillborn child is brought back to life for the duration of one breath, enough to make it able to be baptized and named.
Continua la lettura di “PICCOLO CORPO” BY LAURA SAMANIArticle by Valentina Velardi
Translated by Lorenzo Papa
Evanescent and at the same time material, the expressive universe that animator Florence Miailhe gives form to with La traversée succeeds in combining a fairy-tale atmosphere with crude realism, restoring with extreme clarity the strength of a universal and archetypal story, that of those who are forced to abandon their own land and, as exiles, struggle to get somewhere else.
Continua la lettura di “LA TRAVERSÉE” BY FLORENCE MIAILHEArticle by Laura Anania
Translated by Gianluca Zogno
Micaela Gonzalo joins TFF39 with her first full-length film, which follows a young Argentinian girl called Jimena (Mora Arenillas) along her journey towards self-awareness and personal growth.
Her path is marked by the dualities between solitude and companionship, between individual and universal and between family and work. The protagonist must solve these issues in order to find her own place in the world.
Continua la lettura di “LA CHICA NUEVA” BY MICAELA GONZALOArticle by Alessandro Pomati
Translated by Francesca Schiavello and Benedetta Di Fiore
It was 2019 when the Italian audience got to know the world that the debuting director Phaim Buyan brought to the big screen in Bangla, his first work: a gentrified, suburban, Roman world (the events of the film took place in “Torpigna”, short for Tor Pignattara), perfect for the zoomers generation; an ironic world, sometimes even cynical when it comes to the condition of second generation immigrants and their difficult process of integration; a world and an atmosphere perfectly recognizable by those born in the second half of the nineties onwards.
Continua la lettura di “BANGLA – LA SERIE” BY PHAIM BUYAN AND EMANUELE SCARINGIArticle by Gaia Verrone
Translated by Stefania Frassetto
The opening film of the 39th edition of the Turin Film Festival is Sing 2, written and directed by Gareth Jennings, in its international preview. In this new chapter, Buster Moon and his friends set out on a journey that takes them from the small reality of the Moon Theatre to the sparkling Redshore City, where they look for a new adventure and a new opportunity to prove their worth to the world, by getting the chance to perform at the Crystal Tower Theatre. Although, at first, they achieve what they wished for, thanks to the unhoped-for help of fate, soon they are crushed by hardships hiding behind every corner. And to make the situation even more complicated, there is the “white” lie told by Moon to appear more impressive to the eyes of the tycoon producer of the show: this lie will lead him to risk much more than just the realization of his goals, forcing him to face the reality of a competitive and, at times, cruel industry.
Continua la lettura di “SING 2”, BY GARETH JENNINGSArticle by Cristian Cerutti
Translated by Francesca Luna Lombardo
One eye turns to the camera. The camera enters to examine the optic nerve from which the connections to the brain branch off, while the cold, unaffected voice-over explains how it is responsible for reconstructing the data received. However, the reconstruction is never impartial. It’s always influenced by the cultural structures in which we are immersed. The opening sequence of All Light, Everywhere immediately reveals the intention behind the visual essay directed by Theo Anthony: to overturn the dialectic between observer and observed. At the same time it demonstrates how, historically, it has been concealed by observers to hide the connection between dialectics and the management of power.
Continua la lettura di “ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE” BY THEO ANTHONYArticle by Chiara Rosaia
Translated by Simona Sucato
Slow panoramic scour a sidereal landscape, an expanse of mountains covered by snow and dominated by the wind. It is perhaps an alien territory that is at the center of El elemento enigmático, a hostile environment in which three men struggle to advance. Men in helmets and motorcycle suits, without face or voice (we under stand the dialogues only through subtitles), wandering aimlessly waiting for their own end. An atmosphere of suspension persist throughout the movie, a work difficult to categorize, halfway between storytelling and video art. Indeed, if it is possible to trace aspects dear to science fiction,such as the clash between nature and man, these are sucked into the omnipresent aura of mystery, a dense and at the same time impalpabile atmosphere, like the icy vapors emanating here from the rocks.
Article by Andrea Bruno
Translated by Aurora Sciarrone
A bar, a few lights on: some dim colored neon-lights, the counter’s illumination, an old jukebox emitting a soft glare in a corner. Paul (Peter Outerbridge), the bartender, is about to close the place while outside in the night,a snowstormblows.All of a sudden Steve (RJ Mitte) bursts in,a wanderercarrying a story from a different bar, of a different bartender, of a different stranger brought there by the storm. From this first one, a lot more stories come up, while midnight approachesand someoneis relentlessly driving in the snow.
Continua la lettura di “THE OAK ROOM” by CODY CALAHANArticle by Niccolò Buttigliero
Translated by Nadia Tordera
Red Aninsri opens with a dialogue between cats. They communicate through the most artificial of cinematographic techniques that allow them to speak: dubbing. No attempt to follow the expressions of their faces or their movements. The human voice adheres to their bodies forcibly asserting its technological superiority. That of Red Aninsri is a universe in which everything is exquisitely fake, where an incurable discrepancy remains between the images of the world and their sounds.
Continua la lettura di “RED ANINSRI OR TIPTOEING ON THE STILL TREMBLING BERLIN WALL” by RATCHAPOOM BOONBUNCHACHOKE and “MOM, I BEFRIENDED GHOSTS” by SASHA VORONOVArticle by Chiara Rosaia
Translated by Nadia Tordera
Among the films of this edition of the Torino Film Festival, Une dernière fois represents an anomalous object. Indeed, on closer inspection it does not often happen that a film defined as pornographic crosses the boundaries of sector events which although increasing still constitute a separate universe, well distinguished from generalist festivals. Let’s put aside the misunderstandings (and for some the hopes): Olympe de G.’s first feature film is not just sex, just as its purpose is not (only) to excite us. It is not because the sixty-nine healthy and wealthy protagonist Salomé (Brigitte Lahaie) has decided to die. And it is from this serene but irrevocable choice that sexual interactions are born, the succession of embraces in search of the right person with whom to live her “last time”.
Article by Alice Ferro
Translated by Paola Macchiarella
February 6th, 1978 – On a sidewalk in Washington D.C., a body was found. It was Linda Lipnack Kuehl, a journalist who devoted the last ten years of her life to writing a (never finished) biography of the legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday. During her research, she interviewed dozens of people and investigated thoroughly on the singer’s life. The heritage she left is priceless: 125 audiotapes, 200 hours of interviews and a manuscript. Billie is the result of the analysis and punctual use of this unpublished material: a colossal project directed by James Erskine, who decided to create a documentary about the singer and then found himself in charge of a rare task, beginning with the purchase of this precious material from a collector in New Jersey.
Continua la lettura di “BILLIE” BY JAMES ERSKINEArticle by Fabio Bertolotto
Translated by Simona Sucato
Funny Face opens with the close-up of Saul (Cosmo Jarvis), an introverted boy from Coney Island, looking into the camera wearing a grotesque grinning mask. Like The Joker, even the protagonist of Tim Sutton’s new film is an outcast who craves revenge for wrongs suffered. The mask thus establishes a direct dialogue with pop iconology which, starting with Todd Phillips’ latest film (Joker, 2019), has made that smile a symbol of oppression.
Continua la lettura di “FUNNY FACE” BY TIM SUTTONArticle by Francesco Dubini
Translated by Nadia Tordera
Eighteen years after the last edition, the competitive section of short films returns to the Torino Film Festival. Two programs, twelve shorts chosen from more than 500 titles for six female directors and six male directors from all over the world. Very different talents compared to a heterogeneous parterre that combines a fascinating and precious variety of techniques and ideas. It is proof of the importance and strength of a complex and demanding genre capable of “giving back the cinematographic machine in a small way” at an international level, according to the recruiter Daniele De Cicco
Continua la lettura di TORINO 38 SHORTS
