Marco Bellocchio: Political Bodies

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.