Comoara (“tesoro” in rumeno) è il fulcro di questa vicenda quasi fiabesca. Siamo in Romania, un padre racconta la favola di Robin Hood al suo bambino, ma viene interrotto dal vicino che gli chiede in prestito del denaro, è pieno di debiti e stanno per espropriargli la casa. Entrambi però sono nelle stesse condizioni, anche il padre riesce a malapena ad arrivare a fine mese.
Continua la lettura di “Comoara” (“Treasure”) di Corneliu Porumboiu
Article by: Giulia Conte
Translation by: Rita Pasci
Brooklyn, a drama directed by John Crowley and written by Nick Hornby, based on the novel of the same name by Colm Toìbin. It’s the moving story of Eilis Racey (Saoirse Ronan), a young Irish immigrant who, attracted by the promise of America, departs from Ireland leaving her family and her home to reach the coasts of New York City. The initial chains of homesickness quickly fade away and Eilis lets herself get lost in the intoxicating charm of love. Pretty soon, her liveliness is interrupted by her past, and this young woman will have to make a choice between the two countries and the two lives they involve. Continua la lettura di Brooklyn by John Crowley
Article by: Giulia Tinivella Dettoni
Translation by: Roberto Gelli
Guldkysten (Gold Coast) is a film produced in 2015 by Danish director and writer Daniel Dencik and has been presented within the section Festa Mobile in TFF.
The story takes place in the first half of 19th century. A young and naive Danish botanist leaves for the African colonies in the Gold Coast, in order to check and develop local plantations, and at the same time with the purpose of studying several floral species in those savage places, which are still unknown. Once he reaches the colonies, he is amazed by the enchanted nature of its forests and meets black people, towards whom he feels at the beginning a sense of superiority, soon replaced by the idea that there are no differences between they and him. He witnesses the disgusting behavior of the colony governor and his vices towards local women and men, who have to endure any kind of wickedness and vulgarity. As time goes by, he becomes a visionary: he dreams of a world without slavery, in which he could educate local people, in order to let them progress. But no one is going to support him.
One day he discovers that a rich black merchant traffics in slaves. He furiously decides to intervene and stop that slave trade, which was already forbidden by law, though still practiced. In spite of an illusory victory, where justice, liberty and equality finally seem to prevail, the young botanist soon finds himself alone and ends up being treated in worse conditions than those reserved to the slaves.
The director makes the movie start by showing the final scenes as a prologue: in this way, he wants to give more importance to the set up rather than to the narration. Gold Coast refers to Romanticism, a period when nature was celebrated for its vitality. We see the beautiful landscapes of Ghana (the same ones of Cobra Verde of Herzog), which are the protagonist of the film in some of its parts and represent the adoration of nature. Above all, Daniel is struck by the law regulating this savage nature: mathematical laws, not the traditional ones already known at that time. The spiral figure with its cyclic nature and its repeating is what mostly attracts him. It is part of the story’s architectural structure and works as a message telling us that in a certain way, the world will always come back to its original condition, to be what it was before.
This is a film, which shows the magnificent beauty of African nature but at the same time, it points out the evil of human being, who does not deserve to live in such a perfect world.
Article by: Elisa Cocco
Translation by: Chiara Toscan
“My name is Leo, I’m 11 and I have a secret… I’m a hero.”
This is the second animated film after A Cat in Paris (2010) by Jean-Loup Felicioni and Alain Gagnol. The film tackles subjects such as illnesses, childhood and bravery. A serious disease affects an eleven-year-old child upsetting his boyhood, the most beautiful period in life. However, his courage is the element that stands out in the film: Leo decides to help Alex and Mary with their investigation, at the extent he sacrifices himself for their sake. He proves to be brave facing his illness and, at the end of the film, when he decides to stay with Mary even if it might preclude him the chance to rejoin with his material body.
Article by: Elisa Cocco
Translation by: Chiara Toscan
Mary Shepherd (wonderfully interpreted by Maggie Smith) is a lively elderly woman who lives in her dear old smelly van. She wonders around the streets of London, seeking for a safe place to live, until she get to Camden Town, an inner district in the north of the city. Here, people prove to be kind to her, especially when she settles with her van, despite the smell it brings in front of their homes.
The comedy writer Alan Bennet (interpreted by Alex Jennings) has just bought a house in the neighborhood and immediately notices the presence of the battered van, parked in the lane, and the eccentric woman who inhabits it.
When on-street parking becomes forbidden, Miss Shepherd finds herself without a place to park her van, and the writer, a restrained but kind man, invites her to settle temporarily in his driveway. However, the provisional arrangement becomes permanent: “I was supposed to stay here for three months, but I ended up staying fifteen years!” says Mary at the end of the film while laughing out loud; years in which their beautiful friendship develops, even including arguments and misunderstandings, just like an old married couple.
In Nicholas Hytner’s film there are two versions of Alan Bennett: one who lives his life, and the other who writes about it. The story is mostly true and is about an author who struggles with a creative block while trying to find himself. But the film is also the story of a friendship which turns an unknown vagabond into “one of the family”.
Presented at the festival’s section “Festa Mobile”, The Lady in the Van is adapted from Alan Bennett’s play and his autobiographical book. The writer, who is also the screenwriter of the film, played a walk-on part in the final scene.
The Lady in the Van is a pleasant film that leaves place for reflections while teaching to look beyond appearances, because behind the clothes (or the smell) there is always a hidden story.
Article by: Lara Vallino
Translation by: Roberto Gelli
Contemporary images of FIAT plants during the night covered by the machinery’s noise. Break. Second worldwide postwar period: Sicilian children are interviewed about the matter “Where are you dads?” “They are in Germany”.
This is the beginning of Francesca Comencini’s documentary entitled In fabbrica: Cipputi Award winner in 2007 as the best film about work. This year Comencini has received the lifetime achievement award in TFF.
During the Fifties Italy relies on industry, in order to improve working life, which can guarantee a better lifestyle. In a short dialogue between a journalist and a worker we hear “Is it easy to find a job?”, “Yes, there is a lot”, which causes some astonishment among the modern spectators, who got used to the term precariousness. But those years represent the highest point for the local economy, the so-called economic boom: from all the areas of the peninsula people move towards the big northern industries, so as to find a job. “Would you come back home to Naples?”, “No, not even if they covered me with gold”, this is the reply given by a girl defending her new status of worker. The interviewed show themselves to be always satisfied, in a time when job is a source of money and sustenance. What is more, it is something, which people can be proud of. On the other hand, this period also witnesses a strange combination between guaranteed jobs and black market labour, sometimes related to child labour.
Those years give progressively birth to a class consciousness, which results in the first FIAT workers uprising in 1962. If it is true that they get better work conditions, more problems seem to arise like that concerning the housing of people coming from the south. As a female worker stated in 1968: “those who always work by using their arms, lose mental agility, memory and thinking ability”. This situation leads towards new strikes aimed at removing production lines: workers now want to take part at the production activity, not only by tightening bolts, but by putting something of their own into the final products.
With the 80’s the concepts of profit and progress come onto the scene and automation systems are adopted in the firms. Workers form picket lines surrounding FIAT plants 35 days long, the firm replies imposing unemployment insurance. On 14th August, 1980 workers not involved in the measure, together with common citizens, demonstrate in the streets of Turin. It is the so-called “March of the forty thousand”; an invisible crowd of people opposing workers strike and demonstration. The unprecedented event is a sign of a rising individualism and negation of class consciousness. From that time on, there were in fact no strikes anymore.
Nowadays factories are still there but their workers have become a sort of invisible entity: none of them thinks about protesting or striking. There is an emptiness in terms of unity, that same unity which would let the situation change. Above all, none seems to believe in change anymore. A sense of resignation and indifference has spread among workers causing the maintaining of the status quo, which was conquered through efforts during those years, when consciousness of factory workers in Italy was born.
Article by: Elisa Cocco
Translation by: Rita Pasci
After reaching success and having been awarded with two Michelin stars, the famous chef of a Paris restaurant, Adam Jones (played by Bradley Cooper), destroys his career with his addiction to drugs and women.
After a period of redemption, spent opening a million oysters, he decides to go back to London, determined to open the best restaurant in the world and to gain the much desired third Michelin star. In order to achieve this, however, he needs a group of experts and so he assembles the best team possible: financer Tony (Daniel Bruhl), his friend Max (Riccardo Scamarcio), his old French workmate Michel (Omar SY) and most of all, his colleague Helene (Sienna Miller), one of the best chefs on the British market.
Adam’s desire of redemption, the cooperation of his team and Helene’s love will bring him to conquer the sought-after third Michelin star.
Bradley Cooper is supported by a great cast: in addition to the above-mentioned actors, Uma Thurman plays the role of Simone Forth, the most important food reviewer in London; Emma Thompson is Dr. Hilda Rosshilde, a well-known psychiatrist; while Matthew Rhys plays the role of Montgomery Reece, a top celebrity chef well-known all around Europe, who has already owned three Michelin stars.
Burnt, directed by John Wells, tells a story about love for food and cooking, but it also focuses on the importance of second chances.
A witty, funny film. But, above all, a film that can make one’s mouth water.
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.
Article by: Barbara Vacchetti
Translation by: Simona Restifo Pecorella
“This is not a story about a disease, but the story of a human relationship”, said Eddie Redmayne yesterday at the press conference of the Turin Film Festival. He is the protagonist of ‘The Theory of Everything’, in which he plays the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Actually, that is what the film is all about: it is a love story. Between whom though? Between Stephen and his first wife, Jane, or between Stephen and physics?
The film is the adaptation of the autobiographical book ‘Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen Hawking’, written by his first wife. It starts right from the first meeting between them, and then proceeds along the years, when they were in love and supported each other, when they created a family and when finally got separated.
Despite the serious tones, it manages to be funny in some moments. The two references to the famous British series ‘Doctor Who’ were particularly interesting and gave it a decisive British print.
Playing the role of Stephen Hawking has not been easy, but the charming interpretation of charismatic Eddie Redmayne convinced everyone right away – maybe also earning him an Oscar nominee for best actor this year. For the time being, however, he has received the Maserati award last night in Turin.
Yesterday morning, at the press conference, the British actor told us that he was eager to participate in the film project but, as soon as he obtained the part of Hawking, he realized the difficulties this role could entail. In fact, dancer and choreographer Alexandra Reynolds followed him in the preparation of his role by teaching him how to move his body properly and to use only certain muscles. Moreover, the actor went to a specialized clinic where he could study the physical and emotional troubles caused by ALS illness.
Interpreting this role certainly involved a very hard work, both physical and psychological. However, Eddie Redmayne stated that it was primarily the meeting with Stephen Hawking that helped him immerse adequately in the role and make him understand even the smallest aspects of this wonderful, iconic man, who wants to reveal us something more than the mysteries of the Universe.
The film focuses precisely on this point. It does not say much about physics, black holes or Hawking radiations, but it rather concentrates on human relationships. The difficulties encountered along the way can only be overcome with a tremendous force of will and with the affection of caring people. It is a study on love and on different ways of loving. That is what the “theory of everything” is really about.
Foto di Bianca Beonio Bocchieri
Article by: Karima Vinti
Translation by: Renato Panzera
How would you react if one of your family members, or a friend, told you you that “tomorrow they are not going to be alive”? “Prima di andar via” could be the answer.
Directed by Michele Placido, this adaptation of the theatre show directed by Francesco Frangipane and written by Filippo Gili is about a family’s reaction to the son confessing his suicidal intentions. What causes this insane decision is that he cannot live without his wife, who died three months before. In a first moment they don’t understand whether Francesco (Filippo Gili) is telling the truth or he’s just talking nonsense. But Francesco is convinced of his decision and doesn’t want to go back. For him, nothing is worth it anymore, and he can’t picture his future with another woman because no one could ever be as great as Giovanna. The hug scene with his mother is touching, a hug that wants to last forever, full of love and pain.
The film was entirely shot in a small theatre. Lights and scenic design tend to give a sad, melancholic and furious air. The actors are not famous in the Italian cinematographic circle — with the exception of Giorgio Colangeli — but it’s worth writing their names: Filippo Gili, Michaela Martini, Aurora Peres, Vanessa Scalera, and Francesca Alunno. The actors succeeded in representing something that can really touch your soul. A fantastic interpretation from everyone, with no exceptions.
After the first view at the “Cinema “Massimo” on November 24th, Michele Placido, some of the actors and Francesco Frangipane talked about their work with an excited public which warmly greeted the film with a long final applause. Michele Placido stated that it had been a beautiful experience and that he had decided to make it a film right after he saw the theatre show.
Director Francesco Frangipane stated: “The theatre show has hardly been around. The only achievement was the possibility of playing the show at the “Elfo Puccini” theatre in Milan”. Next, the director reflected upon the quality of performances in Italy, maintaining that the actors in this movie have nothing to envy to the so called “famous actors”, even though more well prepared figures are needed in our cinema. “If Italian directors went a bit more often to the theatre, perhaps the Italian cinema would be more lively”. Finally all of the actors thanked Michele Placido. According to them, it is because of Michele’s generosity that this movie made it to the big screen.
Article by: Karima Vinti
Translation by: Ilaria Codeluppi
Matt (Josh Lucas) is a saddened man, without any goals in his life; after a fight with his partner Andrea (Lucy Owen), he finds himself wandering around his city without a destination. In the meantime, Alan (Stephan Plunkett) and his girlfriend Farrah (Mickey Sumner) are discussing after an unlucky sexual intercourse, while preparing a party in their tiny apartment. At the party, Farrah spots Matt sitting in the living room.
Continua la lettura di THE MEND: A SHARP COMEDY, READY TO TURN INTO TRAGEDY
Article by: Alessandro Arpa
Translation by: Ilaria Rana
“Filmmakers must be merciless, or they are for the catering”
Alberto Signetto was definitely merciless. He loved to consider himself as a rhino because he was a “treacherous, stubborn, fat, bulky and hardly tameable animal” and he represented the fight against conformism. “Walking with red rhino”, the last film by Marilena Moretti, pays homage to one of the most underestimated Italian personalities of the 20th century.
Continua la lettura di WALKING WITH RED RHINO, A PRAISE OF EXERIMENTAL CINEMA
Article by: Giulia Conte
Translation by: Ilaria Codeluppi
Eleonora Danco, theatre author and actress, makes her debut as a film director with her first feature-length movie. N-Capace is the second movie, together with Frastuono, by DavideMaldi, that represents Italy in this 32nd Turin Film festival.
Eleonora Danco plays a woman, a tormented soul, that wanders around from Terracina to Rome, places which have a connection both to her childhood and her present life. Along the way, she questions the teenagers and elderly people she meets, asking questions about death, school, love, sex, religion, homosexuality, violence and traditions. Her purpose is to understand their feelings through the answers, and to feel their emotions.
Continua la lettura di N-CAPACE, ELEONORA DANCO’S DEBUT AS A FILM DIRECTOR
The traditional idea of Christmas as a day of meeting with your own partner’s family has already been used and abused. However, the originality added by the authors of Boris (a famous Italian tv series), Giacomo Ciarrapico, Mattia Torre, and Luca Vendruscolo, is the vision of Christmas as a celebration of darkness, doomed to end in tragedy, since the ancient times. It’s as if Murphy’s Law was stubbornly unleashed every year, the same (and cursed) day.
Continua la lettura di OGNI MALEDETTO NATALE (EVERY CURSED CHRISTMAS)
“Eau zoo”, a film by Belgian director Emilie Verhamme, is certainly a both fascinating and intricate work. It belongs to the section “Festa Mobile”, one of the widest and most various of the Festival.
