In recent years, Italian cinema seems to be paying more attention to the space of reality. If for a moment we put aside the more purely commercial cinema, conveyor of an idea of reality that is often forced when not directly invented (are Italians' holidays really those of Boldi and De Sica?), and if we ignore the many films that tell the story of the country without departing from the somewhat stale and often indigestible clichés of a cinema that is narratively and emotionally weak and convoluted, we find a significant number of authors who choose to courageously and recklessly tell fragments of life and portions of the world. In this horizon, the filmographies of Pietro Marcello and Michelangelo Frammartino stand out with great clarity and surprising authority. Theirs is a cinema that is born from bodies and places, where everything smells of reality and the staging is respectful and measured. A cinema that walks through alleys and woods, gets on trains and gets lost in the countryside, does not disdain thought and prefers the emotions of lived lives to easy proclamations. “I have nothing to say, only to show” said Walter Benjamin. Here, the films of Marcello and Frammartino walk, look around and “show”. And they invigorate the gaze.
Born and raised in Bobbio, Marco Bellocchio attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome at a young age. His first film, I pugni in tasca (1965), is one of the most mature and bold debuts in the history of Italian cinema. After La Cina è vicina (1967), a slogan film about the Italian bourgeoisie, he directed, among others, Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina (1972), a bitter reflection on journalism. One of the most politically committed directors, he denounced the abuses of institutions (Nel nome del padre, 1972, Matti da slegare, 1975, Marcia trionfale, 1976) alternating documentary with fiction cinema. With the psychoanalyst Massimo Fagioli, he directed Il diavolo in corpo (1986), inaugurating a prolonged cinematic journey along the routes of the unconscious. In 1997 he brought to the screen a text by Heinrich von Kleist, The Prince of Homburg, which achieved great success among critics and audiences, confirming himself as a lucid, rigorous and passionate director. Having confirmed his success with a film adaptation of Pirandello's novel (La balia, 1999), he turned his attention to the dilemmas of the present and recent history (L’ora di religione, 2002, Buongiorno, notte, 2003, Il regista di matrimoni, 2006). The only Italian in competition, in 2009 he participated in the Cannes Film Festival with Vincere, obtaining great acclaim from international critics. At the last Venice Film Festival he presented Sorelle mai, a film in six episodes set in a family setting.
Michelangelo Frammartino was born in Milan in 1968. In 1991 he enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture at the Milan Polytechnic, a context in which he developed an interest in the relationship between the concrete and constructed spaces of living and the presence of photographic, cinematographic or video images. In 1997 he graduated in directing at the Civica Scuola del Cinema and continued his own experimentation with images. Since 2005 he has taught Directing Institutions at the University of Bergamo. His productions include: o non posso entrare (2002, winner at the Bellaria Festival), Il dono (2003, awarded at Annecy, Thessaloniki, Belfort, Mons, Tiburon, Spalato, Bellaria, Warsaw), Le quattro volte (2010, previewed at the Cannes Film Festival, awarded at the festivals of Cannes, Monaco, Sant’Arcangelo di Romagna, Bobbio, Annecy, Reykjavík).
Born in Caserta in 1976, Pietro Marcello trained as assistant director to Leonardo Di Costanzo and assistant director to Sergio Vitolo. From his first works (Il Tempo dei Magliari, Il cantiere, La baracca, Grand Bassan) specialized critics paid close attention to his documentaries. In 2007 he directed l passaggio della linea, a documentary shot entirely on express trains that cross Italy. The film was presented at the 64th edition of the Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti section and won the Pasinetti Doc Award and the Special Mention Doc/it Award. In 2009 he made La bocca del lupo, obtaining numerous awards at the main international documentary festivals (Turin Film Festival, Festival Cinéma du Réel in Paris, Berlin Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival). In Italy it won the Nastro d’Argento and the David di Donatello for best documentary of the year.
Enrico Magrelli, journalist and film critic, is one of the authors and hosts of the daily radio program on Raitre Hollywood Party (his voice is the warmest and most calm). He was director of cinema news on Tele+, then author and host of Ciakpoint, a program on Raisat Cinema. From 1979 to 1982 he was part of Carlo Lizzani's creative and organizational staff at the Venice Film Festival. From 1988 to 1990 he was Director of the Critics' Week at the Venice Film Festival. In 1991 he was Guglielmo Biraghi's right-hand man at the Film Festival. His monographs dedicated to Robert Altman, Roman Polanski, Nanni Moretti. He edited a dozen volumes including: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Marilyn Monroe, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Oshima, Satyajt Ray. Since 2004, he has been part of the Selection Committee of the Venice International Film Festival, an event where he works side by side with the director Marco Müller. As a television author, he has signed numerous programs, including “Domenica in”, “Festival di Sanremo”, “Telegatti”, seven editions of the “Concerto di Natale in Vaticano” and various specials dedicated to cinema. Since 2009, he has been the Curator of the Cineteca Nazionale.