Between memory and present: Gianfranco Pannone’s films

19 – 22 FEBBRAIO 2009

CINEMA TREVI

Vicolo del Puttarello 25 l Fontana di Trevi l Rome

Rarely a student from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia has pursued the path of the documentary with the commitment and dedication of Gianfranco Pannone. Since the early nineties, when there was no talk of relaunching the documentary and the only prospects for a young author were those offered by the drama, Gianfranco Pannone chose an entirely individual path, away from the minimalism of Italian cinema. Thus begins the journey of  Pannone through Italian history and its social and anthropological plots, having as coordinates the call of the South of Italy as a meeting ground and dialectical confrontation. The weight of fascism, the war, the myth of the boom, the unions, the workers’ struggles up to the current problem of immigration. Pannone is a witness to the recent Italian history, an Italy view from below, through the common people. To all these people Pannone addresses with a human gaze not to excuse, but to capture the contradictions, the anthropological and social change in a country grown very quickly. In this context, the eye of the documentary becomes privileged insight that has the gift to widen the horizons of the audience.