The legendary Cinema Novo director Joaquim Pedro de Andrade made his feature debut with this mesmerizing 1962 documentary about an even greater Brazilian legend: Mane Garrincha, the phenomenal striker from a desperately poor village who somehow turned his bent and misshapen knees into a remarkable asset. Joaquim Pedro’s work has the hallmarks of an essay film. It makes the methodical case for the role of soccer in the lives of Brazilians, and then tries to place Garrincha — who stuck to his provincial roots and beliefs even after achieving superstardom — within the context of a country struggling to find its place in the world.
— Bilge Ebiri (The Village Voice) Read More »

VITTORIO COTTAFAVI
pubblicato su “Alias” – Il manifesto del 26 maggio 2007
Lorenzo Esposito e Donatello Fumarola

Vittorio Cottafavi – La conquista dell’immagine (televisiva)

Quando, fra il 1981 e il 1985, Vittorio Cottafavi firma i suoi due ultimi film prodotti dalla Rai, Maria Zef e Il diavolo sulle colline, la televisione è già lo specchio di un mondo in frantumi. La riduzione di spazi di pensiero, parallela all’occupazione dello spazio-tempo da parte dell’ideologia dell’inserzione, riguarda da vicino la rabbia e il dolore di queste immagini ultime. Immagini perfette, che dell’esperienza cine-televisiva, forniscono la lezione magistrale attraverso il racconto profetico della fine della civiltà contadina (Maria Zef), e si innestano nel punto nevralgico della crisi – come dimostrano i nostri giorni, mai rientrata del tutto – politica, economica e sociale italiana (la Torino del 1937 raccontata da Pavese ne Il diavolo sulle colline). Read More »

PLOT & Review:
Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71) knows no obstacles (or scruples) when he has to create a work of art or win the heart (and the rest) of a woman.
R. Freda does a genuinely popular cinema, practicing many genres, from drama to horror. Faced with a film of adventure, as here, he can be concise and engaging.
(Morandini) Read More »

Outside at night. Tower of lodgings. A syncopated jazz accompanies the successive appearances of young people in front of the camera. Zim, delivered to the police by locals for stealing gasoline, ends up in jail. On the day of his release, he meets Jean-Pierre, who has just been released from the same Parisian jail. The two youngsters become friends. Back in the suburb, Zim decides to find a job and tries to convince Jean-Pierre to go with him… without success. Far from New Wave movies which are becoming more and more bourgeois,
“Les Cœurs verts” is the first fiction film centred on the youth of the housing estates, played by a real gang of greasers, these “bad boys” from the working class, who were then in the news. Read More »

Synopsis:
‘A historian is called to a creepy old castle to help a strange old widow catalogue her erotic antiquities. He then meets her dark, seductive daughter and finds he is falling under her erotic spell. Incapable of forcing himself to leave, he spirals helplessly into their strange supernatural world.’ Read More »

An African-American police detective is asked to investigate a murder in a racially hostile southern town. Read More »

The time is immediately before World War II. The place a remote village in Bengal. Priyanath, a middle aged man and the last offspring of a once wealthy family, gets married to a lovely teenage girl to please his widowed mother. Overcoming the initial inhibitions, he starts enjoying the happiness of a normal married life. Read More »