The Wedding Director
Among Italian filmmakers from the 1960s, few remain active today. Marco Bellocchio is rightly regarded as the long-distance runner of Italian cinema: at 80 years old, he is as prolific as ever, delivering works that represent the culmination and synthesis of a type of cinema he helped shape six decades ago. Often portrayed by magnificent actors, his characters grapple psychological, political and social turmoil, resulting in films of extraordinary vigor, driven by an energetic direction. For this latest retrospective, we are screening Exterior Night (2022) for the first time in Quebec. This five-hour film, the filmmaker’s second exploration of the Aldo Moro affair, revisits the crisis that profoundly impacted Italian politics in the 1970s.
Film director Franco Elica isn't keen on the idea of his daughter marrying a devout Catholic. After retiring to Sicily, he agrees to stage and film the wedding of Bona, the beautiful daughter of a prince, even though she would prefer the wedding not to take place.
Marco Bellocchio
Marco Bellocchio was born in Piacenza in 1939. In 1959 he broke off his study of philosophy at the Catholic University of Milan and enrolled at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. Between 1961 and 1962, he made the short films Abbasso lo zio, La colpa e la pena, and Ginepro fatto uomo. He then moved to London, where he attended the Slade School of Fine Arts. His debut feature film, I pugni in tasca (Fists in the Pocket), won an award at Locarno in 1965 and brought him international recognition. In 2011 he received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice International Film Festival. His work has been the subject of dozens of retrospectives around the world, including at MoMA (New York) in 2014 to commemorate his 50-years in filmmaking at that time, at the 43rd Festival International du Film de la Rochelle, and in 2018 at the British Film Institute (London). Bellocchio has been president of the Cineteca di Bologna since 2014. In 2016, Fai bei sogni (Sweet Dreams) was the opening film of the Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Festival. In 2019, Il Traditore (The Traitor) was In Competition at Cannes; it won six Donatellos and seven Silver Ribbons. In 2021, he presented the documentary Marx può aspettare (Marx Can Wait) Out of Competition at Cannes, receiving the Palme d’Honneur in the same year. In 2022, he was back at Cannes for the premiere of Esterno notte (Exterior Night), which won a European Film Award and was nominated for 18 Donatellos.
Bio : Métropole Films
Photo : Anna Camerlingo
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Marco Bellocchio, corps politiques
Corps politiques : le titre de notre cycle consacré à Marco Bellocchio souligne un motif récurrent de son cinéma. Soit la volonté de filmer les corps, des protagonistes et des acteurs, et de les placer au premier plan, en tension face à la société, aux institutions et au temps qui passe. C’est ainsi que le cinéaste parvient à articuler de façon subtile la rencontre entre les grands récits, historiques et politiques, et les petites histoires, individuelles et intimes.
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