Raro Italiano

*This year we present a module dedicated to the golden age of Italian genre cinema. In the 60s and 70s, Italy was the leader of parallel cinema, a pangea of genres like Péplum, the spaghetti Western, the polar, sex comdeies, etc... This was the period in which directors like Mario Bava, Vittorio Storaro, Umberto Lenzi, Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento became known. The ’cinema from across the alps’ created a unique style, inspired by American films, but with a European touch, a literary tradition and a surprising freedom in its tone. The music, made by composers like Ennio Morricone, also helped to attract an international audience.

This module focuses on the "Giallo": a kind of violent thriller made up of convoluted plots and fascinated with phenomena like alienation, paranoia and para-psychosis. Add a dash of nudity and film with excess. The term "Giallo", Italian for ’yellow’, refers to the jacket color of a literary series published by Mondadori. Instead of presenting the usual well-known titles, we’ve opted for the more bizarre and forgotten films, those that have rarely or never been screened outside of their country of origin, in their original 35mm format and in the condition we could find...

We’ll also pay a small tribute to the "poliziottescho", brutal and dry stylized police films full of nihilistic violence as a criticism against organized crime and the political climate of the time. We’ll screen "Milano Calibro 9" by Fernando di Leo. The screening will be followed by a concert with Calibro 35, an Italian band that covers and re-interprets the frenzied music of these films. We’ll also pay homage to the "Fumetti neri", a series of comics like the famous Diabolik and Kriminal. Cinema and comics have mutually trained one another to push the frontiers of graphic horror and explicit respresentations of sex, resulting in zombie films, cannibal films and "Naziploitation". Corrado Farina will come in person to present "Baba Yaga", a genre film from 1973 co-written by Guido Crepax, a cult Fumetti author.

Genre cinema began to decline in the 1980s, unable to compete with the enormous budgets of American blockbusters that depicted the same topics and themes traditionally reserved for B-movies. More recent Italian genre films attempt to recreate Hollywood films but without the budget, resulting in some ridiculous and hilarious films like "The New Barbarians", competition for "Mad Max". The remakes are sometimes just plain embarassing and boring (the list is long...), but the cinematic adventure is worth the detour and is bound to surprise if not for its excess, than for its subversive nature that continues to influence filmmakers today.*

A fragile young woman in a loveless relationship resigns herself to complete submission. When her partner becomes interested in the voodoo practices of their African friends, an inhuman conspiracy seems to tighten around her like a vice. The story starts like an Italian version of "Rosemary’s Baby" but quickly finds a unique voice to gradually take us into a hallucinatory nightmare. We go back in time with Mimsy Farmer to an obscure and intimate past full of sweaty men and repressed feelings of guilt, taking in a grotesque and shocking final scene to make us doubt everything that happened before. The narration is intriguing and enigmatic, full of moments that are difficult to grasp. The film is also worth seeing for its visuals. Director Francesco Barilli has a remarkable use of color, presenting everything on a backdrop like a painting. The superb pictorial images recall the master Mario Bava.

The pulsating sound of jazz-funk pumps in the background as we find ourselves in the company of sleazy Milanese gangsters, all nervous about the bundles of large bills they lost in an unsuccessful transaction. Gastone Moschin is fresh out of prison when he’s picked up in a car and brutally beaten by Mario Adorf and his bunch, the latter persuaded that the former knows more than he lets on. This film is ahead of the league when it comes to the 70s wave of (brutal) Italian whodunit films: An extremely violent look at the underworld, filmed by Fernando di Leo in the style of Jean-Pierre Melville and under the influence of various forbidden hormones. The film touts extraordinary characters, a naked night-club dance scene with Barbara Bouchet, and Mario Adorf in a maniacal revved-up delirium stealing the show from the stoic Moschin.

Tommaso Colliva discovered Italian ’60s and ’70s soundtracks while digging through dusty crates of vinyl in search of obscure samples. From that moment on, those electrifying tracks were the main inspiration for a jam band which he formed in 2007. With Massimo Martellotta on guitars and lapsteels, Enrico Gabrielli on keyboards and brass, Fabio Rondanini on drums and Luca Nano Cavina on bass, Calibro 35 is a killer combo, combining classic and obscure theme songs with contemporary elements, all while remaining true to the originals. Visuals and outtakes of those beloved exploitation film titles will accompany the performance. After the concert, the vibe will continue in the Nova bar with Tommaso Colliva behind the turntables and Belgian-based yet Italian-minded DJ The Lounge Bastard at his side.

A young woman wakes up with a start one morning after having dreamed of a cosmonaut abandoned on the moon. She suddenly that she’s just lost three days of her life. Florinda Bolkan, known for her performance in "A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin" by Lucio Fulci, amongst others, subtly portrays a desperate woman whose existence is slowly fading. Elements of science-fiction were introduced to this multi-faceted story, generating a nightmarish atmosphere, reinforced by Nicola Piovanni’s melancholic music and images worked by Vittorio Storaro, who bathes the incredible sets in an extra-terrestrial luminescence. Watch out for Klaus Kinski in the most brief but gripping cameo of his career. All of these elements compete to make this atypical and unreal giallo one of the most enigmatic films ever created. Nearly impossible to find, it’s THE film you should discover at the festival.

The ravishing Queen of Giallo, Edwige Fenech, plays the role of Madame Wardh, the wife of an anal-retentive diplomat chased by her memories of a sado-masochistic relationship with the dangerous Jean. She meets the seductive Georges at a decadent, high-society soirée and immediately falls in love. Meanwhile, an unknown murderer is terrorizing the town, unleashing his wrath against all beautiful women. Sergio Martino, like Dario Argento, had a great influence on the giallo trend of the early 70s. This film contains all the typical elements of the genre: beautiful adultresses from the social elite, strong and weak men, the most gaudy fashion statements of the seventies and incredible interior design. These stylized compositions are filmed in cinemascope and accompanied by a fantastic soundtrack. The desperately complicated storyline focuses primarily on debauchery and on the incisive razor blade of the mysterious murderer, dressed in black and wearing leather gloves.

Valentina is a young photographer living in a trendy Milanese circle of artists. During her regular stroll one evening she meets a strange woman who asks to be called "Baba Yaga". Valentine starts to have bizarre visions after their encounter, and her camera seems bestowed with mysterious powers. Valentine hesitates between her love for Arno, a modest director, and "Baba Yaga", mistress of the erotic dream world. "Baba Yaga" is the cinematographic adaptation of a ’fumetti’ comic strip from the famous Valentina series by the screenwriter Guido Crepax. Isabelle De Funes (niece of…) embodies the graceful Valentina while "Baba Yaga" is interpreted by Caroll Baker, the actress who offered us "Baby Doll". Carefully selected images, stylized artistic direction and a groovy soundtrack make "Baba Yaga" an erotic-psychedelic jewel.

Director Corrado Farina will present the film in person.

Fabio Testi is the gym teacher at a Catholic school for girls in London. During an amorous escapade with one of his students, she suddenly freezes, claiming to have seen a murderer from the corner of her eye. He later learns from the media that the young student’s corpse has been recovered. Curious, he visits the site and immediately becomes a police suspect. Other victims follow, brutally assassinated by way of repeated knife stabs to the vagina. All of them were students in the same Catholic school. An elegant giallo by Massimo Dallamno based on the story by Edgar Wallace. Despite the themes of exploitation, this film is a class beyond the genre. Beautiful, obscure images by –surprise!- the master of debauchery Joe d’Amato. Ennio Morricone provides an excellent soundtrack that takes us from searing female screams to gentle piano melodies, passing through atonal lines.

Mimsy Farmer plays a young PhD student in medicine, obsessed by her thesis work on a wave of suicides and prone to hallucinations about bodies awakening at the morgue. She begins an investigation of her recently deceased, sex-hungry father, and tries to come to terms with her own sexual repression and frustration. She’s also quickly torn between two opposite men: one who seeks good, the other who seeks to hurt her. Who will it be…
Armando Crispino gives us a jarring giallo rife with terrifying scenes and camera effects. In the spirit of the times, the 1970s, eroticism and psychoanalysis are extremely present and lead to a series of original and unhealthy situations, lending a unique tone to the film. For those who are curious, it’s probably also the film in which Ennio Morricone’s music is the least remarkable…