Ciak Novecento

Discarding the now overused idea of considering Tuscany solely as a natural and artistic set for film productions, Il segno della Toscana brings to the forefront the work of directors, screenwriters, cinematographers, musicians, set designers, costume designers and actors who, starting from being Tuscan by birth and training, have been able to draw on this extraordinary artistic and visual culture to pour it into the cinema. The cycle of screenings pays homage to directors such as Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Mario Monicelli, Mauro Bolognini; but also to costume designers and set designers such as Piero Tosi, Flavio Mogherini, Giancarlo Bartolini Salimbeni; to masters of photography such as Luciano Tovoli; to actors such as Claudio Bigagli, Paolo Hendel, David Riondino, Renato Salvatori, Folco Lulli, Stefania Sandrelli.

Friday 28 August at 9.00p.m

The night of San Lorenzo

by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
Italy 1982 – color – 105’
costumes designers: Lina Nerli Taviani; with Omero Antonutti, Margarita Lozano, Claudio Bigagli, Paolo Hendel, David Riondino

In August 1944, in a hilly country in Tuscany that overshadows the native San Miniato of the Taviani brothers, a large group of men, women and children try to escape the German battalions retreating towards the Gothic Line and still dangerous, in an attempt to reach the area occupied by the American army. With the magical tones of a fairy tale told to children, personal memories and collective memory, news and fantasy come together to return the epic vibrations of history. Special Grand Prix of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival 1982..

Friday 4 September at 9.00p.m

The comrades

by Mario Monicelli
Italy-France-Jugoslavia 1963 – bn – 128’
costumes designers: Piero Tosi; with Marcello Mastroianni, Renato Salvatori, Folco Lulli, Annie Girardot, François Perier, Bernard Blier

“In the dark since the dying century”, the nineteenth century, in a textile factory in Turin workers, led by a mild but lucid socialist professor, struggle to reduce the daily schedule from 14 to 13 hours. Some timid victory, many defeats, bloodshed and repression, but at least the sense of having recovered the solidarity and dignity of work. “Hovering between Marx and De Amicis”, as it has been written, Monicelli, aided by the actors, the settings and the “authentic” costumes of Piero Tosi, has reconstructed with sympathy the popular and violent atmosphere of an era of profound social transformations. Silver Ribbon 1964 to Folco Lulli (best supporting actor).

Friday 25 September at 9.00p.m

The viaccia

by Mauro Bolognini
Italy-France 1961 – bn – 100’
subject: Mario Pratesi; screenplay: Vasco Pratolini; set design: Flavio Mogherini; costumes designers: Piero Tosi; production: Alfredo Bini; with Jean-Paul Belmondo, Claudia Cardinale, Pietro Germi, Gabriella Pallotta, Romolo Valli

Stories of love, money and knife in Florence in the late nineteenth century: the young Amerigo, sent to the city from the family estate where the snake relatives contend for the heritage of the deceased patriarch, fell in love with the beautiful Bianca, A woman of life met in a brothel, and to attend and support her comes to rob her uncle, with tragic consequences. From the verist novel The Legacy (1889) by Mario Pratesi the Cultured, the literate Bolognini, assisted in the screenplay by the Florentine Vasco Pratolini, he drew a film of involving clarity and stylistic elegance. Silver 1962 ribbons to Flavio Mogherini (scenes) and Piero Tosi (costumes). Gianna Giachetti will be present at the screening. The actress will be introduced by Giovanni Maria Rossi and the journalist Enrico Zoi.

Saturday 3 October at 3.30p.m

I knew her well

by Antonio Pietrangeli
Italy-France-Rft 1965 – bn – 115’
with Stefania Sandrelli, Nino Manfredi, Ugo Tognazzi, Franco Fabrizi

From the province of Pistoia the twenty-year-old, candid Adriana arrives in Rome armed only with her beauty and a tender ignorance, still capable of reckless emotional outbursts. She goes from job to job, from man to man, until the meaning of a useless life drives her to suicide. Pietrangeli comes out of the somewhat worn-out schemes of Italian comedy to tell “French style” the modern story of a woman humiliated, exploited, offended in her intimate. Alongside that of Tognazzi, the performance of Stefania Sandrelli remains memorable in the history of Italian cinema.

Saturday 24 October at 3.30p.m

The desert of the Tartars

by Valerio Zurlini
Italy-France-Rft 1976 – color – 147’
photography: Luciano Tovoli; screenplay and costume designers: Giancarlo Bartolini Salimbeni; with Jacques Perrin, Vittorio Gassman, Giuliano Gemma, Philippe Noiret

Year 1907, at the eastern borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: the young lieutenant of first appointment Giovanni Drogo is sent to a fortress near a desert area where he spends the long days marked by the strict rules of military rule, waiting for an invisible enemy. Zurlini has translated the surreal charm of Dino Buzzati’s novel (1940) into a more concrete historical framework, digging deep into the psychology of the characters and maximizing the tension of suspended events that never happen. Luciano Tovoli’s photography does the rest.
The Displaced: the association Amici dell’Alfieri, which in January 2014 took the new name The Displaced following the reopening of the room of Via dell’Ulivo – one of the statutory objectives since its establishment in January 2007 – has as “mission” to collaborate with the various cultural institutions of the city to keep alive in every form the memory and the art of cinema, also contributing to identify new spaces for its use.

Gli Spostati: the association Amici dell’Alfieri, which in January 2014 took the new name Gli Spostati following the reopening of the room of Via dell’Ulivo – one of the statutory objectives since its establishment in January 2007 – has as “mission” specific to collaborate with the various cultural institutions of the city to keep alive in every form the memory and the art of cinema, also helping to identify new spaces for its use.