Cinema Lessons – “Reality, Visions and Interpretations”

Saturday, October 26 marks the start of the eighth edition of the Cinema Lessons project, which this year presents a series of six events (four lessons and two films) that will conclude on Sunday, January 19, 2025.

Titled REALITY, VISIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS, this eighth edition of the Lessons is organized in synergy between 50&Più Livorno, Centro Studi Commedia all’Italiana, Erasmo Libri Editore and Circolo del Cinema Kinoglaz, who for years have been promoting the culture of Cinema in the local area. The Lessons are endorsed by the Province of Livorno, the Municipality of Livorno, and ConfCommercio Livorno.

The first Lesson, on Saturday, October 26, will take place starting at 5:00 pm in the Auditorium of the Museum of Natural History of the Mediterranean, with the theme TAKING FROM AMERICA: IS GROWTH GERMI OR LEONE MORE?. Speakers: Mario Sesti and Oreste De Fornari.

Hollywood and Cinecittà have had dialectical relationships, starting from the silent era, and it is not easy to navigate the game of mutual influences. From the mythical Cabiria by Pastrone, a more or less direct inspiration for the epics of Griffith and DeMille, to Quentin Tarantino, who has acknowledged a debt to Italian crime films on several occasions.

Two names stand out above all in the 50s and 60s of Italian cinema, for how they filtered American mythologies through a Mediterranean taste and perspective: Pietro Germi and Sergio Leone. The former is especially remembered for certain crime films and a historical film about the fight against banditry (The Bandit of Tacca del Lupo), where the memory of John Ford’s Fort Apache Massacre is evident; the latter for the four famous Italian westerns (from A Fistful of Dollars onwards) that overturn the epic of conquest and the value of legality in a wild (and ironic) exaltation of cunning and unrestrained greed detached from any historical roots and moral brake.

These are the names and titles around which the debate on October 26 will revolve to answer the challenging question posed by the title of the meeting, on what the place of the two authors has been in the history of Italian cinema.

Mario Sesti – Critic, screenwriter, director, he has directed 10 documentary films and one fiction film, Altri padri, selected at Cannes, Venice, Locarno, the Torino Film Festival and screened at MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York. He has won the award for best cinema book twice (in 1994 with Nuovo Cinema Italiano and in 1997 with Tutti i film di Pietro Germi) and in 2005 the Diego Fabbri Award for the best cinema book of the year (with In quel film c’è un segreto) and in 1997 won the Solinas Award for best screenplay together with Ivan Cotroneo and Silvia Barbiera. He was among the curators and creators of the Rome Film Festival and directed the Taormina Film Fest from 2012 to 2014. Currently, he is the artistic director of the Premio Film Impresa and the Milazzo Film Festival – Attorstudio, together with Caterina Taricano, and Communication Manager at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia.

Oreste De Fornari – Film critic, has published books on Sergio Leone, Francois Truffaut, Walt Disney, and Dino Risi’s Il Sorpasso, in addition to American Classics and a history of television drama (Teleromanza). He collaborated for many years with RAI as a television author and presenter, usually paired with Gloria De Antoni.

The LESSONS will take place at the Museum of Natural History in via Roma 234. The FILM screenings will take place at the Centro Artistico il Grattacielo, in via del Platano 6.

Cost of each lesson: € 7.00 full price; € 5.00 reduced for members of 50&Più, Centro Studi Commedia all’Italiana e Circolo Kinoglaz, young people up to 25 years old; Marathon Lesson costs: for everyone € 7.00 afternoon session – € 5.00 evening session – combined both sessions € 10.00.

Students participating will receive a certification to benefit from any school credit.