/ INTERVIEWS

An outcast since childhood, crippled, suffering from gout and rickets, quintessentially stateless, Antonio Laccabue, known as Toni Ligabue (1899-1965), went down to history for his powerful naif art that has fascinated many artists in turn. For instance, director Giorgio Diritti, who presents Hidden Away in the Berlinale competition. 

It’s almost a contemporary Re Lear, Hammamet, the new film by Gianni Amelio, produced by Pepito and Rai Cinema in association with Minerva Pictures and Evolution People, theatrically released in Italy on January 9th with 01 Distribution.

Tony Driver, debut feature of Ascanio Petrini was presented In Competition in the Venice International Film Critics’ Week section

“Cinecittà is an amazing place, I spent two hours walking with Fellini in those studios that made the history of Italian cinema. I still remember them fondly.” This is how our conversation with Phillip Noyce starts. 

Marco Bellocchio takes part in the Cannes competition with a work of great complexity, an important and accomplished film that presents a number a very Italian anomalies: the interplay of mafia and politics, the obscene sacredness of the family, both in a biological and criminal sense. 

Paris-based Italian illustrator Lorenzo Mattotti is not new to literary adaptations. This time the challenge was to adapt Dino Buzzati for the silver screen in his animated debut feature The Bear’s Famous Invasion of Sicily.

Jonas Carpignano is one of the jurors of this year’s Semaine de la critique in Cannes, where he himself debuted with his first film in 2014 and, for this reason, feels like being part of a family. Right after the festival ,Carpignano will be busy working on Chiara, his upcoming feature.

The only Italian film competing in Cannes this year, Marco Bellocchio’s The Traitor, will be released in Italy on May 23rd, the day that marks the anniversary of the Capaci massacre. 

The gavage ritual – for which the bride-to-be must gain weight in order to reach an ideal standard of beauty – is at the core of Michela Occhipinti’s Flesh Out, presented in the Panorama section of the Berlinale.