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Documentaries of anthropological inspiration

LUCANIA MAGIC(MAGIA LUCANA) - 1958
35 mm. - B.N. - Medium length film
Medium length film. Award for the Documentary at the "Festival of Venice 1958". The film, carried out with the scientific consultation of Ernesto De Martino, is about the survival of ancient magic forms in Basilicata.

BIRTH AND DEATH IN THE SOUTH (NASCITA E MORTE NEL MERIDIONE) - (Saint Cataldo)
35 millimetres - B.N.from colour - Duration about 10 minutes.
The film represents, in essential and emblematic terms, the precarious life of a small village about 35 kilometres from Potenza. Award " Puccini Senigallia " 1959. Diploma of merit " Silver ribbon" 1960. Recommendation at the " Festival of Oberhausen ".

DANGER IN VALSINNI (PERICOLO A VALSINNI) - 1959
35 millimetres - B. N. from colour - Duration of about 15 minutes.
The film, entire " constructed " on the basis of an elementary narrative trace, illustrates the life of a peasant family in the zone of Valsinni where work and, sometimes, life itself are threatened by the nature of the land.

LANDSLIDE IN LUCANIA (FRANA IN LUCANIA) - 1959
35 millimetres colour.
A peasant family must abandon the village and the house because they were afraid of landslides. The entire documentary film is " constructed " on the basis of an elementary narrative trace.

THE PUNIDURA (LA PUNIDURA) - 1959
35 millimetres colour. About12 minutes.
An ancient tradition of solidarity among the shepherds of the Nuorese.

WOMEN OF BAGNARA (DONNE DI BAGNARA) - 1959
35 millimetres colour - 10 minutes
From boats and carrying stones in order to construct protective walls, the ordinary life of women of Bagnara is recounted.

GRACE AND NUMBERS (GRAZIA E NUMERI) - 1962
35 millimetres - About15 minutes. Colour
The film points out some magic Neapolitan practices and above all the cult of the spirits of Purgatory. Awarded at the Festival of the Cinema of Authors in Bergamo in 1963.

L'ANNUNZIATA - 1962
35 millimetres About 12 minutes.
An old home for abandoned children in Naples.

THE EVIL OF SAINT DONATO (IL MALE DI SAN DONATO) - 1965
35 millimetres - B.N. - Duration about 10 minutes.
Presented at the "Festival of Peoples" 1965. At Montesano, in Salento, for the festivity of San Donato, protector of epileptic and mentally ill people, particular forms of a magic-religious-protective rituality explode, similar in part to the Tharantism of the near by Galatina.

THE VIRGIN MARY OF PIERNO (LA MADONNA DI PIERNO) - 1965
35 millimetres -BN Duration about 12 minutes.
It was filmed in a direct way with some short "reconstructed" pieces. An archaic festivity which takes place on the 15th August on the mountains of Potentino; religious devotional forms are examined from the use of "belts"(votive constructions with coloured candles that the women carry on their heads) to the propitiatory procession in the woods.

THE FUJENTI (I FUJENTI) - 1966
35millimetres -colour- duration about 16 minutes. It is about ceremonies and events linked to the traditional festivity of THE MADONNA DELL'ARCO which culminates on Monday in Albis in the church of Santa Anastasia at 9 kilometres from Naples. About four thousand ex-voto which document the popular anxiety of salvation in the course of the collective and individual disaster are conserved in the sanctuary.

THE CULT OF THE STONES (IL CULTO DELLE PIETRE) - 1967
35 mm.-B.N-Duration about 18 minutes.
First award of the "Ethnographic and Sociological Film" at the Festival of Peoples 1965. At Raiano, a village of Marsica, near Sulmona, the festivity of San Venanzio is celebrated every year. The Saint lived in the caves around the village and, according to the tradition, the stones of the caves themselves acquired therapeutic proprieties. Along with the official celebrations that take place in the centre of Raiano, "The cult of the stones" is the most secret and the most ancient one: the worshippers go into the caves and they rub themselves on the stones to obtain healing from the illnesses which afflict them.

THE BIRTH OF A CULT (NASCITA DI UN CULTO) - 1968
-35 mm. B.N. - duration about 15 minutes
Presented at the "Festival of Peoples" and at the "Festival of Venice" 1968.

THE POSSESSION (LA POSSESSIONE) - 1971
35 mm.- Colour- Duration about 28 minutes.
Presented at "The Festival of Oberhausen" in 1972. "The birth of a cult" and "The Possession" are about, at a few years apart, a case of heretic cult in the context of popular Catholicism, at Serra D'Arce, in the province of Salerno. Giuseppina Gonnella, a tomato seller, after the death of her nephew Alberto (an ex-seminarist who died at a young age in 1957 in a truck accident) is possessed by his spirit and acquires magic therapeutic powers.

THE POWER OF THE SPIRITS (LA POTENZA DEGLI SPIRITI) - 1968
35 mm- B.N- Duration about 18 minutes.
Presented at the "Festival of Venice" in 1968 and at the "Festival of Peoples" in 1969. Set in the high lands of Irpinia the documentary takes into question, in the first part, the practices of Giuseppe Cipriani, magician and exorcist. Some inhabitants of the place are questioned: the mother of a boy who believes himself brother of the Devil and a blind possessed woman. In the second part of the film we witness "directly" a religious therapeutic session in which a Pentecostal exorcist tries to liberate a woman from an evil spirit.

CHANUKKA' - 1968
35 mm colour- about 15 minutes
An important Hebrew Festivity: the Festivity of the Consecration of the temple, called also "Festivity of the lights", filmed in the Hebrew Community of Rome.

THE JUNCTION (L'ATTACCATURA) - 1971
35 mm. - B.N. - duration about 15 minutes.
Awarded at the "Festival of Salerno" 1973. Margherita comes from Foggia, but carries out her activity as a magician in a popular quarter of Naples. She is interested in "liberating magic" and explains to her devoted patients the magic practices with which she eliminates the evil. At the same time Margherita is interested in black magic, that is to say, practices destined to procure evil through "fatture".

GRACE AND DEATH (GRAZIA E MORTE) - 1971
35mm- B.N.- duration about 15 minute.
Set in Naples the film affronts the so-called "cult of the sacred face", examined in the light of a complex magic religious Neapolitan picture and referred to the cult of the dead.

LA MADONNA DEL POLLINO - 1971
35 mm- colour- duration about 18 minutes.
It's about one of the most archaic festivities of Basilicata. The worshippers walk to the church after an exhausting journey. The manifestations of religious faith are alternated with particular celebratory customs of a profane type which take place outside and inside the temple.

MONTEVERGINE - 1971
BN - duration about 15 minutes.
Pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Montevergine, in Irpinia, among ancient traditions and new customs.

Documentaries of social inspirations

GIRLS OF THE CURTAIN - RAISER (RAGAZZE DELL'AVANSPETTACOLO) - 1962
Colour- about 15 minutes.
The curtain-raiser of the lowest order in Rome, in an old cinema-theatre (Altieri)

THE TRAGEDY OF THE VAJONT (LA TRAGEDIA DEL VAJONT) - 1963-64
16 mm b7n- duration about 45 minutes.
Documentary enquiry "filmed" the month after the tragedy. Evidence of the survivors.

CHRISTMAS IN VAJONT (VAJONT CHRISTMAS 63) (NATALE NEL VAJONT) - 1963-64
35mm - colour duration about 12 minutes.
First Christmas among the survivors of the Vajont.

JOURNEY TO LUCANIA (VIAGGIO IN LUCANIA) - 1965
35 mm - B.N. - duration about 18 minutes.
Journey among the traditions and social declaration.

TIME OF HARVEST (TEMPO DI RACCOLTA)- 1966
35 mm colour- about 12 minutes.
The harvest of olives in some localities of Calabria- traditions and social declaration

THE COMPLAINT (IL LAGNO) - 1966
35 mm - colour- duration about 12 minutes.
The film intends to be a declaration of a particular social situation in the area of San Giovanni in Teduccio.

Documentaries of historical inspiration

TASSO STREET (VIA TASSO) - 1960
35mm - colour- duration about 15 minutes.
Chosen for the Oscar of the Documentary "Coppa Anica" "Festival of Peoples". The film reconstructs, using some catalogue material, some events during the Nazi occupation of Rome.

Documentaries of tourist-cultural inspiration

BASILICATA - A REGION FOR MAN (BASILICATA-UNA REGIONE PER L'UOMO) - 1977
35mm - colour - duration about 43 minutes.
It's about a tourist-cultural itinerary through the region. Sponsored by the Basilicata region.

BASILICATA, A REGION BETWEEN TWO SEAS (BASILICATA-UNA REGIONE TRA DUE MARI) - 1984
Film doc. 16mm. Colour - 30 minutes.
Sponsored by the Councillorship of Tourism of the province of Matera, in collaboration with the "Istituto Luce" Italnoleggio.

Documentaries on Art

STRUGGLE AGAINST MONSTERS (LOTTA CONTRO I MOSTRI) - 1963
35mm - colour - about 15 minutes.
The title is about the dominant theme in the pictorial work of Ennio Calabria.

MAN AND THE MASK (L'UOMO E LA MASCHERA) - 1963
The documentary got inspiration from the terrifying documents of the recent history and "visions" of great figurative arts from Goya to Munch, to Ensor.

ZAVATTINI - 1989
Carried out by the Major Film for the "Instituto Luce". A documentary in 60' dedicated to Cesare Zavattini.