Homage to Michelangelo Antonioni

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Italian Cultural Institute of New York
and
Museum of Moving Image
Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo' NYU
Queens College City University of New York
Cinecitta’ Luce
present
Homage to Michelangelo Antonioni
Thursday, March 29th, 2012 – Sunday, April 8th, 2012
Location
Italian Cultural Institute of New York, 686 Park Avenue, New York City, NY
Museum of Moving Image, 36-01, 35 Avenue, Astoria, Queens, NY
Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo' NYU, 24 West 12th St, New York City, NY
Queens College City University of New York, 65-30 Kissena Blvd, Flushing, NY
Introduction
To celebrate the centenary of Michelangelo Antonioni's birth, the Italian
Cultural Institute has organized a series of screenings of some of the most
famous movies by Antonioni, one of the greatest Italian movie directors of all
time. Antonioni, also a screenwriter, editor, writer and painter, is an icon of
Italian cinema worldwide. The project was organized in collaboration with the
Museum of Moving Image, the Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo' NYU, the Queens
College City University of New York and Cinecitta’ Luce, Rome.
Program
Thursday, March 29th, 2012 at 5:30 PM - Italian Cultural Institute
Reception and screening of the film The Girlfriends (Le Amiche) (1955), with
subtitles in English.
Introduction by David Forgacs, Professor of Contemporary Italian Studies at the
New York University Department of Italian Studies.
Adapted from Cesare Pavese's novella Among Women Only, The Girlfriends
starts with the suicide attempt of a young woman, Rosetta (Madeleine Fischer),
in a Turin hotel. She is discovered by Clelia (Eleonora Rossi Drago) who has
returned from Rome to oversee the opening of a fashion store. Through
Rosetta's friend Momina (Yvonne Furneaux), Clelia meets a group of young
women and artists who expose her to a world of sexual entanglements and
infidelities and force her to confront her own values and desires.
Friday, March 30th, 2012 from 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM - NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli
Marimo’
Antonioni 1912/2012
A one-day symposium at NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo’.
Speakers include: Richard Allen (NYU), Francesco Casetti (Yale), David Forgacs
(NYU), Ara Merjian (NYU), Matilde Nardelli (UCL, London), Karen Pinkus
(Cornell), John David Rhodes (Sussex), Karl Schoonover (Warwick), Michael
Loren Siegel (Brown).
Organized jointly by Departments of Italian Studies and Cinema Studies, NYU
and Casa Italiana.
Thursday, April 5th, 2012 at 10:00 AM - Queens College City University of
New York
The Gaze Elsewhere: Michelangelo Antonioni Centenary
Curated by Eugenia Paulicelli, the symposium will take place at Queens College,
CUNY, Recital Hall Room 226, The Music Building. Reception to follow in the
President’s Lounge.
Speakers include: Marco Natoli (University of Massachusetts) “Michelangelo
Antonioni’s Chung Kuo China: Expectations, Reception and censorship”; David
Ward (Wellesley College), “Antonioni’s Objective Eye”; Ronald Gregg (Yale),
“Antonioni and the Aesthetics of ‘Eclipse’.
The panel is presented with support from the Department of European
Languages and Literatures, Film Studies, and the Office of Institutional
Advancement, Queens College, CUNY.
Friday, April 6th – Sunday, April 8th, 2012 - Museum of Moving Image
Antonioni documentaries
Screenings at the Museum of the Moving Image. Presented with support from
Office of the Dean of Arts and Humanities, Queens College, The City University
of New York. All films in Italian with English subtitles.
•
Friday, April 6th, at 7:00 PM
The Red Desert (1964) restored print of Antonioni’s first color feature.
•
Saturday, April 7th, and Sunday, April 8th, at 2:00 PM
Antonioni’s documentary shorts, introduced on April 8th by John MacKay,
Yale University:
Gente del Po (1943/47), N.U. (1948), L’amorosa menzogna (1949),
Superstizione (1949), Sette canne, un vestito (1949), La villa dei mostri
(1950), Vertigine (1950), Ritorno a Lisca Bianca (1983), Kumbha Mela
(1989), Roma (1990), Noto (1992), Sicilia (1997).
•
Saturday, April 7th, and Sunday, April 8th, at 5:00 PM
Chung Kuo Cina (1972): Antonioni’s rarely screened 4-hour documentary
shot in China.
Michelangelo Antonioni began his career making documentaries. Rarely seen
outside Italy, these films offer a deeper understanding of the aesthetic he
developed in later years. As Antonioni said of his first documentary, Gente del
Pò (People of the river Pò), filmed in 1943, “Everything that I made
afterwards, either good or bad starts from there, from this film on the River
Pò.” In these documentaries, we see Antonioni’s roots in the aesthetic of
neorealism through his eye for social reality, but we also see the beginnings of
another eye, one that looks below the surface of the image for a deeper, more
complicated and contradictory reality that goes beyond the social. These
documentaries also reveal Antonioni’s life-long interest in process and duration
in the way his unobtrusive camera follows events as they unfold in time
according to their own narrative logic and pace.
The Italian Cultural Institute of New York
Founded in 1961, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York is an office of the Italian
government, dedicated to the promotion of Italian language and culture in the United
States through the organization of cultural events. Under the guidance of its trustees
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its advisory board, and its staff, the Italian
Institute of Culture of New York conforms to this commitment by fostering the
cultural exchange between Italy and the US in a variety of areas, from the arts to the
humanities to science. Central to the Italian Cultural Institute's mission is a constant
effort to encourage the understanding and enjoyment of Italian culture by organizing
and promoting cultural events in collaboration with the most prominent academic and
cultural institutions of the East Coast. The Italian Cultural Institute of New York
focuses on the development of initiatives aimed at showcasing Italian excellence in
various fields, such as science, technology, the arts and design. The development of
academic exchanges, the organization and support of visual arts exhibitions, the
grants for translation and publication of Italian books, the promotion of Italian
studies, and the cooperation with local institutions in planning various events that
focus on Italian music, dance, cinema, theater, architecture, literature, philosophy
etc., are just a few examples of the Institute's initiatives. In conclusion, the Italian
Cultural Institute of New York provides an "open window" on the cultural and social
aspects of past and current Italy.
For more information please visit: [email protected]
Press contact:
Eva Zanardi - Italian Cultural Institute New York
Ph. +1 212 879-4242 ext.333
Fax +1 212 861-4018
[email protected]
www.iicnewyork.esteri.it