CHALLENGERS

Special Event Pesaro 60 Award
Luca Guadagnino
Simone Emiliani e Cecilia Ermini
Luca Guadagnino is one of the most acclaimed film directors on a worldwide scale. Underlying his works there is the structure of classic film genres, which are then rein- vented and appropriated through a cinema with a well-defined identity that is imme- diately recognizable on the contemporary film scene. Guadagnino has tackled documentary cinema (Mundo civilizado, Cuoco contadino, Inconscio italiano), the horror genre (Suspiria, Bones and All), sentimental comedy (Challengers, to be screened ‘in the Square’ Saturday, June 22), decadent drama (I Am Love), which can also combine with the thriller (A Bigger Splash) or with a vision in which his gaze seems to coexist with that of his characters between Call Me by Your Name and Melissa P. Guadagnino’s vision is so broad that his ambition embraces the great Hollywood melo- drama of the forties and fifties as well as TV series (We Are Who We Are). At once ma- jestic and personal, pervaded with overwhelming passion, his filmmaking is in constant dialogue with the cinema of the past and the director’s own models, such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Maurice Pialat, and Jonathan Demme. Guadagnino directed some of the most outstanding young international actors of the recent past and the present, but his muse and cinematic body is Tilda Swinton, with whom he has often col- laborated ever since his debut feature, The Protagonists.
The volume to accompany the Pesaro Nuovo Cinema Award Spettri del desiderio. Il cinema e i film di Luca Guadagnino (Marsilio), contains essays, interviews, and com- ments by Elisa Baldini, Enrico Camporesi, Massimo Causo, Federico Chiacchiari, Ma- riuccia Ciotta, Marco Cucco, Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, Daniele Dottorini, Simone Emiliani, Cecilia Ermini, Beatrice Fiorentino, Scott Foundas, Anna Franceschini, Giuseppe Ga- riazzo, Damiano Garofalo, Gabriele Gimmelli, Gaia Giorgi, Francesco Grieco, Marco Grosoli, Carolina Guasina, Roberto Manassero, Luca Mannella, Matteo Marelli, Pietro Masciullo, Michele Masneri, Raffaele Meale, Giona A. Nazzaro, Luca Pacilio, Andrea Pa- stor, Paola Piacenza, Cristina Piccino, Giampiero Raganelli, Emanuele Sacchi, Roberto Silvestri, Sergio Sozzo, Leonardo Strano, Carlo Valeri, Cristiano Vitali.