00:20Thank you for joining us
00:22at the 45th edition of
00:23Le Giornatello Cinema Muto
00:24the Pordenone Silent Film Festival
00:26I'm here in the
00:29Deconsecrated Church and Cloister
00:30of San Francesco in Pordenone
00:32which seemed to me like the appropriate place
00:34to talk about our program
00:36on Lazio. Now not that this
00:39architecture resembles Lazio
00:40at all but you'll be seeing that the films
00:42that we're screening are set in the past
00:44and it just seemed like a nice idea
00:46to combine the two
00:49For the last few
00:50years we've been having a kind of grand tour
00:52of Italy. It's a continuing series
00:54we started two years ago with Sicily
00:56we went on to Liguria and now we are
00:58in Lazio which also includes Rome
01:00of course. This is a program that's been
01:02curated by Elena Beltrami from
01:04the Cineteche del Friuli
01:06and Gabriele Peroni from the Museo
01:08del Cinema in Torino
01:10and the idea is
01:12to show the beauties of
01:14Italy in general obviously of Lazio
01:16in particular now but also to give
01:18something of real life of the
01:20actual people who live in those
01:22places. So we have a home
01:24movie, we have a kind of industrial film
01:26as well as fiction that
01:28allows the different localities
01:31of not just Rome
01:32but the provincial parts
01:34of Lazio also to be
01:36seen. They very much wanted to
01:38decentralize the program which I
01:40agree with 100% and
01:42the first film that we have
01:44is called Il Romanzo di Magdalena
01:46it's a 1913 film
01:48from Film d'Arte Italiano which was
01:50associated with Pate and
01:52and it's a film that uses
01:54the locations of Rome in a really
01:56interesting way. It's a film about a
01:58flower seller who gets into a
02:00relationship with an artist and so
02:02the way that she moves through the
02:04city and the choices of location
02:05that are used very much contribute
02:07to our understanding of where she is
02:09in the strata of society.
02:11We see Via Margutta for example
02:14which still is known as an
02:16artist's street although really I don't
02:18think any artist can still afford to live there
02:20but at the time it was
02:21had a sort of Bohemian flavor to it.
02:24What's nice about the film is it's not
02:25just focusing on the beauties of
02:28older Rome but also of
02:30contemporary at the time Rome.
02:31So you see for example the National
02:33Modern Art Gallery. Modern in that
02:35sense was late 19th early 20th century
02:38and it's a beautiful
02:40rediscovery from the Cinémathèque
02:42de Toulouse. The film isn't quite complete
02:43but it's beautifully tinted and we're
02:46very grateful to Francesca Bozzano not only
02:47for suggesting that we screen the film
02:50but for writing the catalogue note.
02:52After that we have a film called
02:53San Paolo. We're going back a few years
02:55so it's 1910 and that comes from the BFI.
02:58This is a religious film, it's about
02:59the life of Saint Paul and it won the
03:01gold top prize at the
03:03first Milan film contest
03:06again in October 1910.
03:08This starts off
03:10in a recreation
03:11of the Holy Land but then moves
03:13obviously to Rome and
03:15it's wonderful to have the
03:17Appia Antica, the ancient
03:19road just outside of Rome
03:21that they could shoot on. So you have
03:23Cecilia Metella and you have other parts
03:25of the Appia.
03:27If you do come to Rome and I hope you do
03:29you really should take the time to walk
03:31the Appia. It is a fantastic walk
03:33that really makes you feel like you're back
03:35in time. After that we
03:37we have La Bella Galliana and this is a good
03:39example of the films that are being made outside
03:41of Rome. So here we go to Viterbo
03:43which at one point was the capital
03:45of the papacy when they were no longer
03:47able to be in Rome for all sorts of political
03:49reasons. So this is set in
03:51medieval Renaissance times and it really
03:53uses the locations of Viterbo
03:55in a wonderful way.
03:57You'll see in the catalogue, if I hope you
03:59do consult the catalogue, we also even have
04:01another travelogue of medieval
04:03Viterbo. That's not streaming in this
04:06in this section now
04:08but there are other films that show
04:10this beautiful city and the palace
04:12of the popes.
04:13After that we shift focus
04:16and we go to an industrial film.
04:19Industrial maybe that's not quite the
04:20right word. It's a celebration
04:22of the newly launched Fiat
04:24Cinquecento Nove 509
04:26and you'll see they're in the
04:28Rome city hall. They are driving
04:30through the streets of Rome. What's interesting
04:32about this film which comes from
04:33the archive in Ivrea
04:35is that it is non sequentially
04:38edited. One scene doesn't really
04:40follow the other. You'll see if you know the
04:41geography of Rome you'll understand
04:43exactly what I mean. Curiously
04:46there's another version of the same film
04:48that's housed at the Cineteche del Friuli
04:50which we are screening also
04:51in the Teatro Verde
04:54this year so people can
04:56compare the two.
04:57And then finally we have
05:00a home movie by Giacomo Forte.
05:02He was shooting his family
05:03on 8mm and it's lovely
05:06again to have that
05:08sense of immediacy, that sense of
05:09an amateur filmmaker. It was probably
05:12shot around 1936.
05:13We start off in Ostia, the
05:15kind of beach community of Rome
05:17the closest one to Rome. And there
05:19we follow his family. We go to Viterbo
05:21for example, Civita Castellana
05:24the Lake of Bracciano
05:26and the Castellaro de Scalchi
05:28and it ends finally in
05:30Naples. You'll see Vesuvius.
05:33And why do we do that?
05:34It's a perfect segue because for
05:36next year we are going to be
05:38focusing on Campania as our
05:40Italian region. So that's
05:42a very nice way of
05:44bringing us forward into
05:452027. I want to add here
05:48just as a reminder for
05:50non-Italians, do keep in mind that
05:52Italy is ultimately a very young country
05:54notwithstanding the fact that we think of it as
05:55the site of ancient Rome,
05:58Renaissance, all of that. But Italy
05:59was only united.
06:01Florence became capital in 1861.
06:04Rome only in 1870.
06:06So cinema, it was a very
06:08very handy way of making
06:10people throughout the country feel
06:12invested in the entire
06:14country rather than just in their province
06:16or in what might have been let's say a former
06:18country.
06:19And that's an important thing to keep in mind.
06:21We're delighted to have Michele Catania
06:24as the accompanist to
06:26today's screenings and
06:27I'm sure you'll enjoy them and his music
06:30and I look forward to seeing you later.
06:31Bye bye.
06:32.
