The Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco is pleased to present CINEDAY al femminile, a series of productions directed by Italian female filmmakers.
This series is dedicated to Italian director Cecila Mangini (1927-2021), considered the first Italian female documentary filmmaker, and it is available to the first 300 to register. We close the series with three of her works: Facce (Faces), La canta delle marane (The Swamps’ Song) and the world premiere of Grazia Deledda la rivoluzionaria (Grazia Deledda The Revolutionary), Cecilia’s last documentary, dedicated to the first italian woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Please note that the link & password you’ll receive upon registration are valid for 48 hours after the specified date and time.
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MAY 30 | 7:00 PM
OMAGGIO A CECILIA MANGINI (Homage to Cecilia Mangini)
Photo: Paolo Pisanelli, Archivio Cinema del Reale
FACES (Facce)
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Dir. Cecilia Mangini, Paolo Pisanelli
Italy, 2019, 5’08”
The landscape of the faces of a crowd of spectators taken by surprise by the audacity of a young female photographer in Rutigliano, an Apulian village as they celebrate the anniversary of the patron saint. As the band plays, Cecilia Mangini suddenly bursts onto the steps of the bandshell behind the maestro who is conducting a beautiful Rossini overture. The Rutigliano audience stares in stunned amazement at what is happening. Click! An instant that has lasted 55 years brings us back to the landscape of faces, of men dressed in their finest clothes for the concert in the piazza…Males of all ages. No women are visible except for a few half-hidden faces, one carrying her child. A thousand faces, a thousand stories, a thousand unpredictable trajectories crowding the public space, captured forever by Cecilia—a photographer of the streets, ready to enchant and surprise the public at just the right moment: a hundredth of a second that lasts forever.
LA CANTA DELLE MARANE (The Song of the Marshes)
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Dir. Cecilia Mangini
Italy, 1961, 11′
“La canta delle marane” (The Song of the Marshes) is Cecilia Mangini’s second encounter with the boys of the outskirts of Rome, in the summer, in the shallow, dirty water of the ponds near Settecamini (in 1962, thatwas like saying the ends of the earth), amid weeds, dumping grounds, and stones. A masterpiece of Italian documentary cinema, it is a farewell to the enchanted world of the marane, a place of magic for the young inhabitants of the endless Roman outskirts. In evoking the exploits of a gang of relentless boys—thefistfights, robberies and assaults—the camera follows the faces, the rituals, the movements and the mischief of those who will become the ragazzi di vita (hustlers). “La canta delle marane” is a film composed like a poem, with music by Egisto Macchi set to the rhythms of swimming in the marana canal and the beautiful text in Roman dialect, written and narrated by Pier Paolo Pasolini. That reality is long gone. It is the memory of one of the unrepentant protagonists of that gang of boys—anti-heroes who affirm themselves in the freedom of the game, in the venting of violence, in defying the law, in their scorn for us, the aliens, the spectators, who will never be able to understand or accept them.
WORLD PREMIERE
GRAZIA DELEDDA THE REVOLUTIONARY (Grazia Deledda la rivoluzionaria)
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Dir. Cecilia Mangini, Paolo Pisanelli
Italy, 2021, 53′
A cinematic journey that brings to life the world of Sardinian writer and ethnographer, Grazia Deledda, through unpublished documents and manuscripts. The first Italian woman and writer to obtain the Nobel Prize for literature in 1926 “for her idealistically inspired writing, which with plastic clarity depicts life on her native island and faces the struggles of humanity with depth and sympathy,” Grazia Deledda was a revolutionary. She went beyond the confines of male-dominated culture and followed her own creative path as an artist and as a woman. The year 2021 marks the 150th anniversary of her birth.
The films are In Italian with English subtitles
ABOUT
Photo: Paolo Pisanelli, 2017
Cecilia Mangini (Mola di Bari, 1927 – Rome, 2021) documentary maker and photographer. From her earliest work, Cecilia Mangini offered a committed, attentive and personal perspective on the individual and society, with particular focus on the themes of marginality, immigration and social justice. She was the first woman in Italy to make documentaries during the post-war period, and was the screenwriter of several feature films and more than forty short films, mostly made in collaboration with her husband Lino Del Fra. Her camera explored Italy from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, often turning its gaze on Southern Italy and Puglia, to document the rituals of an ancient culture that were disappearing in the wake of the rapid changes of the economic boom. In 2009 Cecilia received the Medal of the President of the Republic, “for passing on to future generations, through her work as a documentary filmmaker, some of the most beautiful images of Italy in the 1950s and 1960s.” Since 2016 she has made documentaries and short films co-directed with Paolo Pisanelli.
Paolo Pisanelli (Lecce, 1965) photographer and filmmaker. After receiving a degree in architecture, Paolo Pisanelli completed his studies at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. He has worked as a photojournalist and still photographer, and since 1997 has dedicated himself to the direction of documentary films. Pisanelli has focused on cities, immigration, and social issues, receiving awards at both national and international festivals. He has taught filmmaking at the University of Teramo, the CSC in L’Aquila and Palermo, the DAMS of the University of Salento, and the Gian Maria Volontè Film Art School in Rome. He is the creator of RadioUèb and la radio in pillole, and is the founder and artistic director of Cinema del Reale, a festival of authors and audiovisual that takes place every year in Salento.
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