Giulia Giapponesi’s Bella ciao. The story beyond the myth
A large Italian contingent of docmakers and professionals will take part at IDFA 2022. BDE sat down with two reps of DocIt, Italy’s national association of documentarians, to discuss how the country’s doc scene is developing, their agenda for the fest and the Italian titles and projects set to be showcased or screened this year.
“This is the 11th year we’re taking part in IDFA and attending the festival with an Italian delegation. All of our activities are made possible thanks to the backing provided by ITA, the Italian Trade Agency. We’re very happy since the Italian presence at the festival considerably grew over the years. On this occasion, 45 companies, 2 Forum projects and nine Docs for Sale titles will be present. In addition, eight features will screen in different strands of the event,” said Lucia Pornaro, in charge of DocIt’s internationalisation processes.
The first Forum project, directed by Zora Kuettner, is titled Don’t Call Me Mad. In it, the helmer explores her psychologist father’s obsession with radical reform of the treatment of serious mental illness in the early 90s. An Italian-British co-production between Delaval Film and Doclab, and slated for release in 2025, the film promises “to blur the political with the personal, drawing from titles such as Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020), and Stories We Tell (2013).”
The second Forum project, Nika Saravanja’s Jump Out, is produced by Italy’s Tico Film Company, in co-production with Belgium’s Playtime Films and Croatia’s Fade In. Slated for release in July 2023, it zooms in on Promise and Ian, two very good friends living in Nairobi. Both are nine, share the same passion for acrobatics and regularly train in a group led by the charismatic Steve. After three years of hiatus due to Covid, Steve announces that some of them will be chosen for the Europe tour with their “Cirque du Soleil” like show.
Meanwhile, Italy’s buzzing Docs for Sale projects are Adolfo Conti’s The Eyes of Dante (“an original portrayal of the greatest European poet of the Middle Ages, through the discovery of his visual universe”); Enrico Parenti and Luca Gennari’s Novorossiya (which zooms in on an American communist foreign fighter, a Soviet-nostalgic captain, an opera singer and two young metal musicians living in Ukraine’s separatist regions) and Benedetta Argentieri’s The Matchmaker(about Tooba Gondal, one of the most infamous British jihadists).
Also featuring in Docs for Sale are Andrea Bertinetti’s Marina Cicogna Life and Everything Else (focusing on “the iconic life and work of the first female producer in Europe”); Sergio Naitza’s A Summer With Joe, Liz & Richard (the helmer returns to the Sardinian set of Joseph Losey’s 1967 film Boom!, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton); Maurizio Sciarra’s Help Me To Do By Myself. The Montessori Idea (about the titular pedagogical method), Michele Ciardulli’s Aftershock (“an intense account of what has happened since 2016 in the territories of the Marche region hit by the earthquake”), Alessandro Scippa’s The Red Mayor (a focus on Maurizio Valenzi, Naples’ first Communist mayor) and Nicola Zambelli’s Sarura. The Future is an Unknown Place (in it, the “Youth of Sumud” tries to return to their people the land that was taken from their families, restructuring the ancient titular village).
Among the most anticipated titles selected for IDFA 2022 are Giulia Giapponesi’s Bella ciao. The story beyond the myth(screening in the Frontlight strand, which centres on the titular song-come-symbol of resistance); and Roberta Torre’s The Fabulous Ones (taking part in the Envision Competition and revolving around a group of trans women who reunite after twenty years to commemorate a dead friend). The Italian connection also includes two features screening in the Masters section and which world-premiered at this years’ Venice Film Festival, namely Gianfranco Rosi’s In Viaggio(documenting the many journeys of Pope Francis) and Mark Cousins’ The March on Rome (focusing on the Italian rise of Fascism and produced by Italian studio Palomar).
DocIt will host the Guests Meet Guests networking event on 12 November at Felix Meritis. “Furthermore, Italian attendees will benefit from dedicated ‘group consultancies,’ during which they will be able to meet up with a number of experts during IDFA’s industry days,” explained Pornaro.
DocIt president Francesco Virga commented on the current state of Italian documentary, both its upsides and downsides. “We believe Italian documentary is living a positive moment. Obviously, the current situation implies pros and cons. Among the main advantages are the renewed attention of the audience towards the genre, increasing investments and a greater interest shown by our public broadcaster [RAI]. On the other hand, the growing audience demand is not ‘properly handled’ by the pubcaster in a coherent in fashion, in particular in terms of investment volumes and consistency in pursuing their company mission.”
“Among other pros are many talents emerging from schools based throughout the country, which have invested in documentary over the years, along with a new generation of producers who, over the last twenty years, worked internationally regardless of our pubcaster’s interest towards this type of works,” Virga continued. “Thus, we surely need to work on our relationship with RAI and the distribution market, which is clearly proving ‘vibrant’ enough but whose theatrical side of business is suffering heavily, and the pandemic has only worsened the situation.”
