The Special Event Mario Martone is co-organized by the Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia - Cineteca Nazionale in collaboration with Indigo Film, Lucky Red, Medusa Film, Nexo Digital, Palomar, and Rai Cinema. We are screening all the feature films and shorts for theatrical release directed by Mario Martone that are available on film or DCP (as far as the rest of works made by Martone are concerned, see the spazio bianco gallery programme in the following section)
Pedro Armocida and Giona A. Nazzaro
Thirty years ago, a new movie caught the Italian film scene off balance. It was Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician, the debut feature film of Mario Martone (Naples 1959), who since 1977 had worked in theatre, a medium he was never to leave behind.
He has directed countless performances, installations, stage plays, documentaries; he has worked for the radio, has practised videoteatro, and has directed civic theatres. An impressive body of work that testifies to one of the most prolific, fecund, open-minded, and curious artistic careers that have ever been expressed in Italy.
In the history of Italian film, the case of Martone is unique. There have always been film directors who alternated stage and set, but such a persistent, regenerating exchange has never been seen before. A declared willingness to be permeable – a desire to be pervaded, if not invaded, by what lies off screen. As if this were a way to constantly rethink your work. A permanent workshop, an actual overheated laboratory. Imagining the cinema of Mario Martone as a construction site seems to us the most correct way to convey the workings that allow projects to intertwine and transfer ideas and intuitions from a set of themes to a new formal core.
Our tribute is an attempt to deal with all that the cinema of Mario Martone has represented and still represents, considering, above all, how it keeps tirelessly looking ahead today, in a constant and incessant creative movement.
The focus on Mario Martone follows the tradition of special events that the Pesaro Film Festival has dedicated to Italian cinema since 1988. Over the years, some of the greatest Italian masters have been honoured at the festival, including Vittorio De Sica, Vittorio Gassman, Mario Monicelli, Ettore Scola, Dino Risi, Dario Argento, Marco Bellocchio, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Nanni Moretti, Bernardo Bertolucci, Marco Ferreri, Luigi Comencini, Alberto Lattuada, Ermanno Olmi, Carlo Lizzani, Giuliano Montaldo, and Liliana Cavani.
The Mario Martone Special Event consists in the retrospective of his theatrically-released films at the Teatro Sperimentale; a selection of films made prior to Death of A Neapolitan Mathematician are screened at spazio bianco gallery, along with his ten-hour film-flusso. A round table with the presence of Martone and a collection of essays published by Marsilio Editori (336 pp.) complete the event. Mario Martone. Il cinema e i film, edited by Pedro Armocida and Giona A. Nazzaro, includes papers, interviews, and comments by Alberto Anile, Pedro Armocida, Renato Berta, Eddie Bertozzi, Anna Bonaiuto, Gianfranco Capitta, Paola Casella, Massimo Causo, Roberto De Francesco, Roberto De Gaetano, Adriano De Grandis, Ippolita di Majo, Bruno Di Marino, Mauro Donzelli, Daniele Dottorini, Cecilia Ermini, Lorenzo Esposito, Chiara Fanetti, Ilaria Feole, Iaia Forte, Massimo Fusillo, Marzia Gandolfi, Gabriele Gimmelli, Michela Greco, Serena Guarracino, Roberto Manassero, Matteo Marelli, Mario Martone, Francesca Monti, Giona A. Nazzaro, Luca Pacilio, Francesco Palmieri, Cristiana Paternò, Daniela Persico, Jacopo Quadri, Ilaria Ravarino, Andrea Renzi, Bruno Roberti, Giulio Sangiorgio, Toni Servillo, Elisabetta Sgarbi, Emanuele Trevi, Daniela Turco, Gloria Zerbinati.
MORTE DI UN MATEMATICO NAPOLETANO (Italia, 1992, 108’)
LA SALITA (Italia, 1997, 25’) tratto da I vesuviani
TEATRO DI GUERRA (Italia, 1998, 113’)
L’AMORE MOLESTO (Italia, 1995,104’)
L’ODORE DEL SANGUE (Italia/Francia, 2004, 100’)
NOI CREDEVAMO (Italia/Francia, 2010, 205’) Versione integrale
IL GIOVANE FAVOLOSO
PASTORALE CILENTANA (Italia, 2015, 19’)
CAPRI-REVOLUTION (Italia/Francia, 2018, 122’)
IL SINDACO DEL RIONE SANITÀ (Italia, 2019, 115’)
QUI RIDO IO (Italia/Spagna, 2021, 132’)
NOSTALGIA (Italia/Francia, 2022, 117’)
ALL SCREENINGS ARE FREE