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Genre cinema and cinema genres
A discussion with Crescentini, Marengo,
Canizzaro and Zarantonello |
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| 14/12/2012 |
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Today at the Jardin de l’Ange, four Italian directors and actors presented their work, each indirectly offering their vision of genre cinema, the central theme of the Vedo Nero - Laboratorio sul cinema italiano conference held last Wednesday. While the guests expressed the many difficulties of making a genre film, they also revealed film genres that are distinct, transversal and unconventional, with respect to the independent projects presented in recent days.
Last year, Festival sponsor Rabarbaro Zucca conceived the first edition of Premio Zucca - Spirito Noir, a literary competition whose first “master of ceremonies” was Michele Riondino, and whose first winner was Maria Elena Corbucci, with L’ultima notte del boia.
This year, actress Carolina Crescentini will be the competition’s mistress of ceremonies. She explained her relationship with literary and cinematic noir, and what compelled her to take on the Rabarbaro Zucca project. “I was very happy to be involved,” she said. “There are many writers who seek visibility and being published could be a very important opportunity. I really like the journalist in Amélie Nothomb’s Hygične de l'assassin. It’s a role I’d love to play and I hope that sooner or later someone will offer it to me. Unfortunately, I’ve made few noir films, because in Italy the genre is relegated to television and punished by the conviction that audiences don’t like seeing it in movie theatres. I think the problem is a different one: audiences need incentives in the form of a wider offering of films that allows them to choose what to see in cinemas.”
Pietro Cannizzaro, in describing his latest documentary Ossigeno, didn’t mention any specific genre but, rather, alluded to a genre of personal cinema, which evolved over time parallel to his sensibility. Says Cannizzaro: “In the past, I made a lot of films only about music and images. When I met Agrippino Costa 15 years ago, he had just gotten out of prison, and I realized he had something to say, and that in order to tell his story I wouldn’t need more images or archive videos, but just to follow him, to stay close to him. I wanted to eliminate material rather than add it. I didn’t want to revisit the Red Brigades, I was interested in Agrippino’s personal transformation, through which to depict the social contest of those years.”
A much different film that Ossigeno is the latest project by Davide Marengo, Breve storie di lunghi tradimenti, based on the eponymous novel by Tullio Avoledo and produced by Sandro Silvestri who during the press conference announced that the film will be officially distributed under the title The Lithium Conspiracy. In speaking about the adaptation of his work, Avoledo said: “When I found out that the rights to my book had been bought, I was curious to find out who had been crazy enough to want to make a movie out of this kind of book, in which readers struggle to navigate the numerous subplots. I was happy that Marengo and the cast brought to life what I most cared about, the characters, perfectly embodied by Guido Caprino and Carolina Crescentini. I found the film to be respectful and entertaining, and with a good pace.”
Short in Turin and partly in Bolivia, in the spectacular Salar de Uyuni (a salt flat of 12,000 square kilometers), The Lithium Conspiracy is a financial thriller, an ever-growing genre on the international film scene.
Last but not least, Gionata Zarantonello spoke about his horror/thriller The Butterfly Room. Produced by Enzo Porcelli, the film was shot in Italy and U.S., stars Barbara Steele and features a soundtrack by Pivio and Aldo De Scalzi. Presented in its embryonic stage at last year’s Festival and completed this year, it was awarded the Notturno nuove visioni, a prize given to young genre filmmakers by the magazine Notturno. “The project took ten years to make,” said Zarantonello, “which if why people should try and make films when they’re young in Italy, so that after making one they’ll realize that things don’t work, and there’s still time to move to another country. The best thing about this project was working with actresses who were in film that I loved as a kid, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Halloween.”
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