From May 25 to 27, the first World Italian Film Week kicked off in Nanjing. The theme of this year's Film Week is "The Origin and Flow of Neorealism", which is organized by the Cultural Department of the Italian Consulate General in Shanghai in cooperation with the School of Arts of Nanjing University, TPM Zilu Theatre Space and the National Film Archive in Milan.
The three-day film festival not only screened a number of italian neorealist film classics, including Fellini's "The Great Road" and "Kabylia Night", Rossellini's "War", "Love on the Edge of the Volcano", de Sica's "Shoe Shine Boy", "The Bicycle Thief", etc., and also held a number of academic salons and dialogues on Italian neorealist films.
Poster of "The Great Road".
During the film festival, the author conducted an exclusive interview with Feng Mian, founder of Zilu Theater Space, Wang Xin, co-founder of Zilu Theater Space, and Lou Lisi, commissioner of the Cultural Department of the Italian Consulate General in Shanghai.
【Dialogue】
Q: How did the first Italian Film Week happen? Can you tell us some of the things behind the film week planning?
Lou Lisi: Italian Film Week was jointly promoted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some film industry institutions, and this year is the first edition, and it will continue to be held in May next year. Before that, our director came to visit the Zilu Theater Space and was very satisfied, so he just started to cooperate with Zilu, including determining the theme of neorealist films, and also accepted Zilu's suggestion.
Poster of The Night of Kabylia.
Q: The films on display this time are basically Italian neorealist films from more than half a century ago, as the organizers, what do you think these film works mean to us?
Feng Mian: First of all, what it means to me personally. I studied at the Beijing Film Academy for a while, including undergraduate studies in film, and had a long understanding of Italian cinema. Italian neorealist films, French New Wave films and other works have taught me that cinema is not just a model of Hollywood films that emphasize the development of the plot. In fact, the same is true of drama. Many people watch dramas and movies, and they value the results the most, which makes many dramas, film and television works develop in a utilitarian direction. But on the other hand, where is the real charm of the movie? Italian cinema gives us a very good interpretation. The development practice of Italian neorealist cinema is not very long, from 1945 to the end of the 1950s, but it is a very important stage in the history of cinema, which has had a profound impact on the development of genres of world cinema.
If you want to talk about the impact on Chinese audiences, as long as you are a student of film or a person who loves the art of film, Italian neorealist films are indispensable.
Fire of War poster.
Lou Lishi: Italian films are particularly popular in China. The year before yesterday, we planned a film festival by the famous Italian director Antonioni, which was held at the Shanghai Film Museum, and each screening had an audience of about 450 people. Previous italian film screenings at the Shanghai Film Festival were also very popular. So we think these movies will also be popular in Nanjing.
Feng Mian: In Europe, Italy is a country very similar to China, in fact, not only the art of film, but also in terms of food culture and history, there are very similarities.
Poster of "Love on the Edge of the Volcano".
Lou Lishi: I would like to emphasize that the Italian country is the country that has won the most Oscars for foreign language films, and it is full of talents in terms of photography, directing, actors, and fine arts.
Q: We know that in addition to the screening of classic films, this film week has also arranged a lot of academic seminar salons and dialogues. In the various activities of this film week, what considerations are you based on to present the current appearance?
Lou Lishi: We have also made some adjustments to the design of Zilu and NTU Art College. For example, some of the films they suggested to be screened were not particularly in line with the category of neorealism and were not screened in the middle of the week. Director Antonioni's work was not presented at this film week. I think he should have a separate exhibition of film works.
Poster of "Shoe Shine Boy".
Feng Mian: The presentation we are seeing now, including in terms of film sources, has been very helpful to the Cultural Department of the Italian Consulate General in Shanghai. The films screened this time have many various film sources on the market, but they are not original film sources, many of them are compressed, and there will be some losses in picture quality. And what we screened was the film source directly provided by the Italian side, which was very rare
Lou Lishi: The subtitles of the film source are the responsibility of my Chinese colleagues, and the accuracy should be the highest compared to the spontaneous translation of subtitles on the market.
Q: Can you tell us about the selection of films for this film week? How is the selection done? What criteria are the criteria for film selection? Can you also briefly review the final screening?
Wang Xin: The film selection was mainly completed by the Italian Consulate General in Shanghai, Zilu Theater Space, and NTU Art College, and Zilu Theater Space put forward suggestions for neorealism as the theme.
Lou Lisi: We added Bazin to the agenda of the event and deleted the screening of Antonioni's work. The films in this exhibition began in the 1940s and continued until the early 1960s. This stage we consider to be the most precious.
Poster of "The Bike Thief".
Q: I just talked about the significance of Italian neorealist films for Chinese audiences. Can you talk about the influence and significance of these films for chinese art film creators?
Feng Mian: Such an impact is very large. For example, Bazin's long-lens theory had an impact on Chinese cinema as early as its inception. Director Fei Mu's classic film "Spring in a Small Town", which came out in 1948, has already had a good exploration in the application of the long lens theory. After the reform and opening up, the fifth and sixth generations of Chinese directors were actually deeply influenced by Italian neorealist films and French new wave films. This impact is not only technical, but more importantly, the return and discussion of the value of life. No matter how history develops, some values cannot be changed, such as respect for life, which is an important embodiment in neorealist films. In fact, the lens is always close to our real life, it is an objective record, but the objective record contains the author's attitude. Although it is a slogan to say "carry the camera on the street", many filmmakers, even artists, now when they want to make a movie, the camera itself is not an object, but a form, a tool that returns more to human nature itself. These are difficult to say without the influence of Italian neorealist films.
Q: What are the ideas for the next italian film weeks?
Lou Lishi: Italian Film Week is part of the italian national cultural brand communication campaign. Film Week will be held in May every year. In addition to this, we have World Italian Week events, and in October, there is a Milan Design Film Festival in Shanghai.