9×10 Ninety
The Istituto Luce turned ninety in 2014, its decades-long history intertwined with that of Italy itself, through cinema and that unique treasure trove of images known to all as the Luce Archives. To celebrate its anniversary, some of the most acclaimed rising filmmakers in Italy were invited to make a small film, with each director selecting ten minutes of footage from the archives, out of the thousands of hours of footage to be found there. The result is an album full of different narratives.
Claudio Giovannesi
Pietro Marcello
Alina Marazzi
Paola Randi
Alice Rohrwacher
Costanza Quatriglio
Marco Bonfanti
Sara Fgaier
Giovanni Piperno
Roland Sejko
Also Directed by Claudio Giovannesi
A gang of teenage boys stalk the streets of Naples armed with hand guns and AK-47s to do their mob bosses' bidding - until they decide to be the bosses themselves.
Young and in prison for theft, Daphne falls in love with Josh, another inmate. Their love story exists through secret letters and fleeting conversations.
Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein (1905-1989) was head of the Jewish Council of the artificial ghetto of Terezín (Theresienstadt in German). The Nazis made him representative of the community destined for extermination. Victim of a tragic contradiction, after the Liberation he was tried and absolved from the accusation of collaborating with the Nazis; he moved to Rome, where he was ostracized by the Jewish community until he died. His son Wolf devoted his life to redeem his image, trying to paint a more complex picture of the role his father played in Terezín. The film reconstructs through the conversation between Wolf and the psychoanalyst David Meghnagi a son's relationship with the memory of his father, between the acceptance, the denial, and the thematization of a common and familiar tragedy.
Ostia, outskirts of Rome: the beach in winter. Two sixteen-year-old boys steal a scooter at 8 in the morning, then rob a store, all in time for getting to school at 9. Nader is Egyptian, but was born in Rome. Stefano is Italian and his best friend Brigitte, Nader’s girlfriend, is also Italian, but for this very reason Nader’s parents are against the match, and Nader runs away from home. The film describes a week in the life of a teenager who tries to subvert the values of his own family. Torn between his Arab and Italian identity, audacious and in love, like the hero of a contemporary fairy tale, Nader will have to put up with the cold, the loneliness, life on the street, hunger and fear, the flight from his enemies and the loss of his friends, before he can really understand who he is.
Also Directed by Pietro Marcello
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
For the 90th anniversary of the Istituto Luce, ten new-generation filmmakers were invited to dig into the archives of the famous institute. Pietro Marcello and Sara Fgaier decided to pay tribute to the rural world of this “lost and beautiful” Italy, accompanying their images with excerpts from Carlo Levi’s book, Un volto che ci somiglia (1960).
Pietro Marcello directs this genre-defying Italian docudrama that follows mustachioed ex-con Enzo as he returns to Genoa after a long stint in prison, only to find that the city he once loved has changed almost beyond recognition. But as he combs the seaside town for hints of his past, he finds solace in the arms of Mary, his faithful lover and a transsexual who embodies the mysterious allure of Genoa itself. Mary Monaco and Vincenzo Motta star.
Italian-French historical romance drama film loosely based on the 1909 novel of the same name by Jack London about a young proletarian autodidact struggling to become a writer.
A portrait of Italy observed through the eyes of teenagers who talk about the places they live in and imagine themselves, torn between the opportunities that surround them, the dream of what they want to become, the fear of failing, the trials they hope to overcome.
A documentary about the Armenian avant-garde filmmaker, Artavazd Peleshian.
A journey through Italian landscapes as seen through the windows of a long-distance express train.
Also Directed by Alina Marazzi
Filmaker Alina Marazzi assembles old home movies trying to piece together the life of her mother, Liseli, who committed suicide when Alina was seven years old.
The film looks again at recent events from a female point of view, through the first-hand accounts provided by the diaries of three women. Rather than focusing on the alleged objectivity of facts, the film gives space to a chorus of voices that narrate those events in first person, visually supported by archival footage of the period, drawn from the most varied sources - institutional, public, militant and private. Anita, Teresa and Valentina come from different Italian regions and different social backgrounds, but share the same feelings: they no longer feel as part of a society based on the patriarchal family, on the power of "husbands" and on the supremacy of males, which requires them to be efficient mothers, obedient wives and virtuous daughters.
14Reels is a collective film in Super 8, where 14 directors in 14 cities around the world have filmed and edited in camera one reel each on the theme of the city.
The world of fashion, between the end of the Sixties and the beginning of the Noughties, had a key character that embodied its spirit and told the tale: journalist Anna Piaggi, living witness of that contamination between art, society and culture that changed fashion and sanctioned its success on a global scale. The daughter of a manager for La Rinascente (Milan's iconic high-end shopping mall whose foundation goes back to 1865), Karl Lagerfeld's muse, "a poet with her clothes" in the words of Bill Cunningham, her life is retraced through interviews with designers (Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Stephen Jones, Manolo Blahnik, and more) together with archival images from four decades of fashion history.
Pauline, a beguiling woman in her 60s, returns to her hometown, Turin, for the first time since she was ten years old. She has inherited her aunt’s apartment in town. In Turin Pauline contacts Dr. Angela Gualtieri, a psychologist whom she had met abroad some time before; Angela runs a maternity centre, the Melograno, a support centre where both mothers to be and young mothers with post natal depression seek help. At the Melograno they are constantly short of help, that’s why Angela asks Pauline to give her a hand in setting up an in-house archive collecting different material relating to maternity: video interviews to new mothers, mothers diaries, photo portraits of mother and child. Pauline accepts and starts her work plunging deep in an emotional material that touches her strongly: the controversial feelings experienced by women in their relation with the child.
Per sempre (Forever) is the second moment in the trilogy on womanliness by the Italian director Alina Marazzi, who takes us through the lives of a group of nuns, showing us their choices and lives in the convents around Milan.
Also Directed by Paola Randi
Professor Biondi is a depressed scientist. After his wife's death, he lives isolated from the world in the Nevada desert, near Area 51. He supposedly works on a top-secret project for the US government, but in actuality, he spends his days on the couch, listening to the sound of the Universe. His only contact with the outside world is Stella, who organizes alien-themed weddings for tourists on the prowl for extra-terrestrials. One day the Professor receives a message from Naples: his dying brother is entrusting him with his two children, so that they may live with him in America.
In 17th-century Italy, a teenager learns about her destiny among a family of witches, just as her boyfriend's father hunts her down for witchcraft.
Also Directed by Alice Rohrwacher
A transfixing, rarely-seen 16mm miniature made as part of Rohrwacher's opera production of La traviata in 2016. In four minutes and with just a few delicate shots, she creates a moment of true cinema, one imbued with her distinct and elegant filmmaking voice.
When the most important friend in her life seems to have disappeared without a trace, Elena Greco, a now-elderly woman immersed in a house full of books, turns on her computer and starts writing the story of their friendship.
This documentary portrait of a traveling circus family—populated with performing kids, dogs, and chickens—seems to situate us squarely in Fellini country. But Giarolo and Alice Rohrwacher are up to something far less obvious, tempering the film’s antic whimsy by capturing the dogged determination of the Solunas as they venture by overstuffed caravan from town square to town square, all the way to the Balkans.
A portrait of Italy observed through the eyes of teenagers who talk about the places they live in and imagine themselves, torn between the opportunities that surround them, the dream of what they want to become, the fear of failing, the trials they hope to overcome.
After growing up in Switzerland, 13-year-old Marta returns to a city in southern Italy with her mother and older sister. Independent and inquisitive, she joins a catechism class at a local church. However, the games and religious pop songs she encounters there do not nearly satisfy her interest in faith. Struggling to find her place, Marta pushes the boundaries of the class, the priest, and the church.
Gelsomina’s family works according to some special rules. First of all, Gelsomina, at twelve years of age, is head of the family and her three younger sisters must obey her: sleep when she tells them to and work under her watchful eye. But the world, the outside, mustn’t know anything about their rules, and must be kept away from them. They must learn to disguise themselves.
Set in the Tuscan countryside, it's centered around the theme of archeological looting and the illicit sale of artifacts.
Also Directed by Costanza Quatriglio
Earthquakes and natural instability "make history" in the life of the communities affected, dismayed, driven back into a semi-wild state and condemned to retrace life stages that have been overcome for several generations until they are reborn in a new balance.
Having escaped from Afghanistan when still a child, Ismail now lives in Europe with his brother Hassan. After several disturbing phone calls, Ismail will have to face the destiny of his family, counting the cost of the senselessness of war and the history of his people, the Hazaras.
Barletta, Italy, 2011: one hundred years after the 1911 Fire at the Triangle factory in New York, several textile workers die because of the collapse of the building in which they used to work as employees of an unauthorized knitwear factory. Mariella Fasanella is the only survivor among the women who worked there. Through her words we experience a century-long journey through the rise and fall of manual labour and industrialism in the Western world.
A coming of age story of a boy Turi and his younger sister Teresa (on an island off the coast of Sicily. Using mostly non professional actors in a neorealist style, this film creates a charming and seemingly authentic slice of village life.
Also Directed by Marco Bonfanti
For the first time, a film about what's inside, behind, before, beneath and in the pockets of Italian animation legend Bruno Bozzetto.
A journey through the incredible story of Renato Zucchelli, the last travelling shepherd living in a metropolis, who conquered the city with only his sheep and the power of fantasy.
A gravity-defying boy raised in seclusion matures into an extraordinary man -- and an international celebrity -- who longs for human connection.
Also Directed by Sara Fgaier
For the 90th anniversary of the Istituto Luce, ten new-generation filmmakers were invited to dig into the archives of the famous institute. Pietro Marcello and Sara Fgaier decided to pay tribute to the rural world of this “lost and beautiful” Italy, accompanying their images with excerpts from Carlo Levi’s book, Un volto che ci somiglia (1960).
A woman gives voice to a few collected fragments of her life on the shores of Sardinia.
Also Directed by Giovanni Piperno
Also Directed by Roland Sejko
As part of the Centenary of the Great War celebrations, this film focuses on a crucial moment of the conflict: the intervention of the United States in Europe.
Based on extensive research and abundant archival footage, this documentary covers the history of Albania in the 20th century, with a special focus on the troubled relationship with Italy, its neighbor across the Adriatic Sea.