Article by Laura Anania
Translated by Stefania Frassetto
On his cinematographic debut, Qi Rui proposes in the Contest section Torino 39 the touching story of Zhang Jixiang (Li Yingchun), a twelve-year-old girl running from an oppressive and suffocating world. The main character lives in an extremely poor little town in the Chinese mountains, when, one day, she becomes her classmates’ target as she is falsely accused of stealing.
Continua la lettura di “THE DAY IS OVER” BY QI RUIArticle by Davide Gravina
Translated by Eléna Bellino
“If I survive, I’ll kill you all”. Bull (Neil Maskell), addressing his enemies, who were once his family, utters these words which would belong in the banal prologue to a classic revenge movie. The British director, however, astonishes the audience of Torino Film Festival ’39 and presents an extraordinary work which finds its essence not in the unexpected and desperate need for revenge but in a ruthless search for salvation.
Continua la lettura di “BULL” BY PAUL ANDREW WILLIAMSArticle by Enrico Nicolosi
Translated by Elena Soldà
Thanks to the perfect restoration of the “Cinematography Sperimental Center”, particularly careful to the sound tracks editing (very important for the point of the movie), and the presentation in the “Back to Life” section of TFF39, the Turin audience was able to see, most likely for the first time, “Number One” by Gianni Buffardi (1973). The movie is pervaded by a conscious madness and clarity of purpose, often unknown to the “crime-genre movies”, which in that period filled Italian theatres
Continua la lettura di “NUMBER ONE” BY GIANNI BUFFARDIArticle by Marco Ghironi
Translated by Alexandra Oancea
Presented out of competition at TFF39, “Quattordici giorni” is the fourth feature film directed by Ivan Cotroneo, an acknowledged Italian television author and screenwriter, who decided to turn into a movie one of his novels from 2020, co-written with Monica Rametta, who was also involved in the screenwriting of the movie.
Continua la lettura di “QUATTORDICI GIORNI” BY IVAN COTRONEOArticle by Davide Gravina
Translated by Valerio Copponi
Never-ending opening credits, accompanied by shots of race cars burning rubber and going around in endless circles open the first feature film by Philippe Grégoire, premiered in competition at TFF39. The film, without sacrificing its biting humour, recounts a piece of Alexander Mastrogiuseppe’s life (Robert Naylor), a boy raised in Napierville, a remote and forgotten Canadian village, who leaves his birthplace to go work as a customs officer on the border between the US and Canada. Grégorie describes the same path which he has walked himself, going from living in his hometown to working as a customs officer, to be able to pay for his film studies. Migration towards a different world is just one of many points of contact between the director’s life and the protagonist’s. Indeed, he focuses on the cultural background to which he is bound, thanks to the racetrack built by his grandparents in Napierville.
Continua la lettura di “LE BRUIT DES MOTEURS” BY PHILIPPE GRÉGOIREArticle by Cristian Cerruti
Translated by Francesca Luna Lombardo
“Why can’t a woman be named Luciano?”
Lucy Salani
C’è un soffio di vita soltanto, presented in the section “Fuori concorso / L’incanto del reale”, tells the story of Luciano Salani, the oldest living transsexual in Italy, whose existence was marked by survival in the Dachau concentration camp. Starting from the idea of making a documentary on the story of a survivor, Botrugno and Coluccini find themselves faced with a character who goes far beyond any possible categorisation. Lucy is fluid, multifaceted, alien. A fluidity that emerges right from her choice to keep her first name: Luciano. The proposal to officially change her name to a feminine one, made several times to Lucy, has always received a negative answer. The name is not seen as a label to define her gender, but represents the memory of her parents, a memory that forges Lucy Salani’s personality.
Continua la lettura di “C’È UN SOFFIO DI VITA SOLTANTO” BY MATTEO BOTRUGNO AND DANIELE COLUCCINIArticle by Sara Longo
Translated by Mattia Prelle
The incorruptible agent Cheung Sung-bong (Donnie Yen) and his former partner Yau Kong-nao (Nicholas Tse) portray two faces of the same coin: facing each other is more or less like watching your own reflection through an opaque glass without recognizing yourself. Their destinies, indissolubly interwoven, could have switched, if they would have made different choices a long time ago. But now that the past is knocking at their door the time has come at last to settle the score.
Continua la lettura di “RAGING FIRE” BY BENNY CHANArticle by Marco Ghironi
Translated by Elèna Bellino
The radiant lightheartedness of youth in 1940s France, scourged by anti-Semitic laws. “Une jeune fille qui va bien” is the debut full-length movie by Sandrine Kiberlain, presented in May during la Semaine de la Critique in Cannes and in competition at the Torino Film Festival 39.
Continua la lettura di “UNE JEUNE FILLE QUI VA BIEN” BY SANDRINE KIBERLAINArticle 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 JENNINGS
