The 27th edition of Noir in Festival gets underway on Sunday, December 3 at the Auditorium IULM in Milan, one day earlier than it traditionally does. The decision was Gianni Canova’s own: as IULM Delegate and co-director of the festival (together with Giorgio Gosetti and Marina Fabbri), he wished to underscore the main novelty of this year’s edition - the creation of the Caligari Award, the competitive lineup reserved for the best Italian film noir released in 2017. The award is dedicated to an unforgettable Italian filmmaker, Claudio Caligari, whose 1997 film The Scent of the Night, exactly twenty years ago, epitomized the film noir genre.
The eight films that made the final cut for this new lineup, which ideally corresponds to the Giorgio Scerbanenco Award for best noir fiction of the year, will be weighed in the balance by a popular jury composed of film students and cinephiles, as well as two film critics and a president who will guide the jury in its deliberations. The first two competing films will be ushered in on Sunday, December 3, by Maccio Capatonda (for his film Omicidio all’italiana) and cinematographer Luca Bigazzi (for Sicilian Ghost Story). All the other finalist films will be presented at the IULM Auditorium by their directors, in a series of talks promoted by the Istituto Luce - Cinecittà, Noir in Festival partner, as is the Anteo Palazzo del Cinema, which will be hosting the screenings of the official selection in the international film competition, along with related special events.
The literary lineup for Noir this year will be headquartered at Milan’s Fondazione Gian Giacomo Feltrinelli, where the acclaimed Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, our muse for 2017, will be treating Noir audiences to a talk on December 6, at 6 pm, and will then be honored with the Raymond Chandler Award at the Teatro Sociale in Como on December 7. On the shores of Italy’s Alpine lake par excellence, the festival will wrap up its rich program of films, books and TV series on Saturday, December 9, with a celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of an absolute masterpiece of the genre, the novel The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, and the 4K restoration of the film version directed by Jonathan Demme.
Books by women noir novelists, psychological themes, the dark shadow of the future and the pall of fear will be the common threads running through the literary talks on the Noir program, featuring high-profile Italian authors such as Simona Vinci, Paola Barbato, Antonella Lattanzi, Marco Vichi, Roberto Costantini, Marcello Fois, Donato Carrisi and Carlo Lucarelli, not to mention foreign authors like Marcos Chicot and Bernard Minier, who will lend Noir their noble Spanish and French traditions in the genre, as well as interlocutors primed for debate such as Antonio Scurati, Chiara Valerio, Nicoletta Vallorani, and Massimo Picozzi.
By contrast, Noir’s film competition this year delves into revenge as only women can do it, cruelty, conspiracy, romantic melodramas, rural noirs, and heart-stopping thrillers, in a lineup featuring eight world premieres in a nod to original film industries ranging from Malaysia to Finland, the Basque country to Ireland. Also on the roster: more world or international premieres, immortal stars such as Isabelle Huppert in Madame Hyde and Joaquin Phoenix in the explosive film You Were Never Really Here, as well as two sterling examples of the genre, screening out of competition: My Cousin Rachel by Roger Michell starring Rachel Weisz, based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier, and Wonderstruck by Todd Haynes, starring Julianne Moore and newcomer Millicent Simmonds.
There are two special events devoted to Italian film on the program: a tribute to maverick detective film director Enzo G. Castellari, and the discovery of a recent cult movie and indie film, Il demone di Laplace by Giordano Giulivi. Last but not least, on the festival’s closing night, filmed live, a reading of the acclaimed play about the assassination of Olof Palme, Gul - uno sparo nel buio, performed by Gemma Carbone and written by Carbone together with Giancarlo De Cataldo, Giulia Maria Falzea and Riccardo Festa.
Como will be the stage for a series of very special events, such as the return of Detective Maigret in the hotly-awaited TV series Maigret’s Dead Man, starring Rowan Atkinson; or the panel of personalities debating "A Father’s Shadow", curated by the Mercurius Prize, which has selected Noir this year to hand out its award for films drawing inspiration from the great psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. Then there’s Noir’s collaboration with the Italian State Police (detective division), inaugurated on the night of December 6 with a special concert by the State Police Force Band, and also an event with our youngest viewers in mind, a fantasy event connected with Christmas celebrations in "Toyland". Noir’s poster for 2017, designed by Alessandro Baronciani, combines two key themes of the event: the power of the female characters who inhabit the stories of Margaret Atwood and the inner obsession that turns into pure terror in the works of noir-meister Alfred Hitchcock, whose film career got off to a start right on Lake Como back in 1926. And the Black Panther is back this year: Noir in Festival’s new symbol to which its film prize, awarded by an international jury, is dedicated; the legendary feline’s diabolical gaze reveals the dark side of our times, as Dario Argento would have it, friend and forefather of our Noir in Festival from the start.
Five conversations are on the lineup for the talk series held throughout Noir in Festival. The first looks at the Italian mystery story (in collaboration with the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia) to discuss the monograph published by the magazine Bianco e Nero, featuring a perfect example like the film Harlem by Carmine Gallone, with its two surprise twist endings, followed by the eagerly-awaited Q&A with Carlo Lucarelli and Massimo Picozzi, on true crimes that become noir fiction. Next up is a masterclass by Adrian Wotton on Gloria Grahame’s "life in noir" and the rediscovery of Nicholas Ray’s 1950 masterpiece In a Lonely Place, while the third talk on the lineup examines the seriality trend in film and television, with Pietro Valsecchi’s production company Taodue and its latest project "Black Vatican". The fourth is a duet between Paola Barbato and Antonella Lattanzi on victims and perpetrators. Lastly, a conversation between three different Italian exponents of noir fiction - Marcello Fois, Simona Vinci and Luca D’Andrea - on writing noir.
The literary section kicks off on December 4 at the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in Milan, with the finalists for the Giorgio Scerbanenco Award for best Italian noir fiction, to be assigned by the jury, while online Noir fans have already made their choice: Romano De Marco’s novel L’uomo di casa, published by Piemme.
"Each year we rekindle the secret of a festival that is akin to a painter’s palette, swirling with all the shades of black there are," observe Giorgio Gosetti and Marina Fabbri. "Having two stages in Milan and Como has prompted us to completely rethink the framework of our narrative of the dark side of individuals and the society at large. But we are still convinced that the secret of our success lies in the blend of mediums, the attention we pay to history and true crime, and the ongoing dialogue between film, literature and television all in a genre the interest in which never flags."
"As I’ve been saying for some time now, " says Gianni Canova about the new Caligari Prize, "festivals should be places where the offerings of fine films already out there should be celebrated and rediscovered, and not just the frenzied quest for the hottest new title. I’m delighted that, just as it is for the Giorgio Scerbanenco Literary Award, Italian film can turn to Noir in Festival and IULM University for a festival that is both a high-profile showcase and a popular event. It’s another way for our university, as well, to explore the new frontiers of the best in film."
