The Italian Cultural Institute, in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, presents the screening of Leopardi, il giovane favoloso, a movie by Mario Martone.
Based upon the short but fruitful life of the legendary Italian 19th century poet Giacomo Leopardi, one of the most important and influential poets in Italian literary history. Director Mario Martone’s film, a scrupulously researched and cinematically staged period biopic, gives us the full sweep of the restless and often terribly unhappy events of Leopardi’s life, set within the turbulent context of early 19th-century Italian society, politics and literature. However this is no academic exercise – it is a powerful, moving search for identity and artistic self-expression by a brilliant misfit, memorably played by Elio Germano (My Brother Is an Only Child, As God Commands).
Poetry comes alive, and through poetry, line after line, recited to the night sky, to the moon, to the “native wild village”‘s roofs, to a dead love fantasy, recited in the grass of his “lonely hill”, to the infinite, romantic wilderness of nature and space; through poetry we see Giacomo: a hungry soul, a restless mind, a rebel, a restless rebel, a hungry mind. The explorer, the wanderer, the child. It’s in the details, in the vocal hues, in the witty comebacks, it’s in the pride towards creation, towards feelings, towards sadness even; it’s in the laughing quietly in the face of the disease. It’s in eating ice cream when expressly discouraged, and falling asleep in the marquise’s waiting room. It’s the strength of the spirit, flashing fragmentarily through the cracks of a wrecked body, of the grip of a possessive, impossible father, of the unbreakable walls of social conformity. It’s Giacomo mixing with the common class in the streets of Naples, and smashing (in his mind) the chair where he’s sitting when subjected to his old man’s sermon.
It was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. It was also screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.
Produced by Palomar, Rai Cinema, supported by MiBACT, Regione Marche, Regione Lazio, Marche Film Commission.
Directors: Mario Martone
Italy, 2014, 135 minutes
Film in Italian with English subtitles
LOCATION
Embassy of Italy – Auditorium
3000 Whitehaven Street NW
Washington, DC 20008
REGISTRATION & PHOTO ID REQUIRED
DOORS OPEN AT 6:00PM AND CLOSE AT 6:55PM
MARIO MARTONE:
Born in 1959, at the age of 20 he founds the theater company “Falso Movimento” through which he stages numerous classical and contemporary pieces. In 1992 he directs his first feature film “Morte di un matematico napoletano” on the mathematician Renato Caccioppoli, nephew of Bakunin, with whom he gets the Special Jury Prize at the Mostra del cinema di Venezia.
In 1995 he receives the David di Donatello for Best Director for “L’Amore Molesto”, based on the novel by Elena Ferrante. In 1998, after alternating theatrical engagements and filming, he brings “Teatri di Guerra” to the screen, a work already tested on stage. He also directs several artistic short films like “Lucio Amelio” (1993) on the well-known collection gallerist, “Una disperata vitalità” (1999), in which Laura Betti recites Pasolini’s lyrics, and “Nella Napoli di Luca Giordano” (2001) on the homonymous exhibition held in Naples. From 1999 to 2001 he is appointed Artistic Director of the Teatro Argentina in Rome. In 2004 he presents his reading of “Edipo a Colono” at Teatro India, which he founded in 1999.