Franco Maresco

Maresco returns to speak not only about Jazz, but about the double thread that connects jazz with Italy, or more precisely, with Sicily.

Franco Maresco celebrates the heritage of Pier Paolo Pasolini on the 99th anniversary of his birth through a series of exchanges with renowned intellectuals which were involved or influenced by his works and ideas.

Palermo, Sicilia, Italia, 2017. Veinticinco años después de los asesinatos de los jueces antimafia Giovanni Falcone (23 de mayo de 1992) y Paolo Borsellino (19 de julio de 1992), y con ocasión de los homenajes celebrados en recuerdo de ambos héroes, la fotógrafa Letizia Battaglia, cronista de su titánica lucha, critica el oportunismo de oscuros personajes que, como el empresario Ciccio Mira, se lucran gracias a la conmemoración de ambas tragedias.

Palermo, Sicilia, Italia, 2017. Veinticinco años después de los asesinatos de los jueces antimafia Giovanni Falcone (23 de mayo de 1992) y Paolo Borsellino (19 de julio de 1992), y con ocasión de los homenajes celebrados en recuerdo de ambos héroes, la fotógrafa Letizia Battaglia, cronista de su titánica lucha, critica el oportunismo de oscuros personajes que, como el empresario Ciccio Mira, se lucran gracias a la conmemoración de ambas tragedias.

Palermo, Sicilia, Italia, 2017. Veinticinco años después de los asesinatos de los jueces antimafia Giovanni Falcone (23 de mayo de 1992) y Paolo Borsellino (19 de julio de 1992), y con ocasión de los homenajes celebrados en recuerdo de ambos héroes, la fotógrafa Letizia Battaglia, cronista de su titánica lucha, critica el oportunismo de oscuros personajes que, como el empresario Ciccio Mira, se lucran gracias a la conmemoración de ambas tragedias.

Palermo, Sicilia, Italia, 2017. Veinticinco años después de los asesinatos de los jueces antimafia Giovanni Falcone (23 de mayo de 1992) y Paolo Borsellino (19 de julio de 1992), y con ocasión de los homenajes celebrados en recuerdo de ambos héroes, la fotógrafa Letizia Battaglia, cronista de su titánica lucha, critica el oportunismo de oscuros personajes que, como el empresario Ciccio Mira, se lucran gracias a la conmemoración de ambas tragedias.

Franco scaldati - died in 2013 - was one of the most important autors of italian theatre plays, Maresco describes his role in the cultural and social field. Through his opera we can observe Italy from another point of view.

Franco scaldati - died in 2013 - was one of the most important autors of italian theatre plays, Maresco describes his role in the cultural and social field. Through his opera we can observe Italy from another point of view.

This film tells the story of three defeats: Berlusconi’s political and human defeat in his “twilight”, the one of Ciccio Mirra, Berlusconi’s unconditional supporter, deeply rooted in an ancient culture that dies hard, and the director’s artistic defeat in an Italy that recognised itself in this “Berlusconian culture” for a long time, and probably still does.

This film tells the story of three defeats: Berlusconi’s political and human defeat in his “twilight”, the one of Ciccio Mirra, Berlusconi’s unconditional supporter, deeply rooted in an ancient culture that dies hard, and the director’s artistic defeat in an Italy that recognised itself in this “Berlusconian culture” for a long time, and probably still does.

This film tells the story of three defeats: Berlusconi’s political and human defeat in his “twilight”, the one of Ciccio Mirra, Berlusconi’s unconditional supporter, deeply rooted in an ancient culture that dies hard, and the director’s artistic defeat in an Italy that recognised itself in this “Berlusconian culture” for a long time, and probably still does.

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

Italian documentary

Italian documentary

In the Sicily of the late 1940s, two brother sculptors, tired of selling madonnas to the local churches, finally realize their dream, and set up a Sicilian production company, thanks to the help of a local bishop. They start producing one box-office failure Z-movie after the other, all with terribly bad local non-pros as actors. Covered in debts, they finally have their great chance, when a local nobleman obsessed by magic decides to invest all his wealth in the making of a movie about Cagliostro, just one year after Orson Welles' Black Magic (1949). They hire a famous American actor (Robert Englund) and start shooting "The Return of Cagliostro".

In the Sicily of the late 1940s, two brother sculptors, tired of selling madonnas to the local churches, finally realize their dream, and set up a Sicilian production company, thanks to the help of a local bishop. They start producing one box-office failure Z-movie after the other, all with terribly bad local non-pros as actors. Covered in debts, they finally have their great chance, when a local nobleman obsessed by magic decides to invest all his wealth in the making of a movie about Cagliostro, just one year after Orson Welles' Black Magic (1949). They hire a famous American actor (Robert Englund) and start shooting "The Return of Cagliostro".

In relation to some of Pasolini's visits to Palermo for this last film, in 2000 Ciprì and Maresco shot Arruso, which begins with a phrase by Pasolini ("I banished the word hope from my vocabulary") and consists of imaginary interviews with some local characters who are presumed to have had homosexual relationships with the director. The two record the testimonies, sometimes affectionate others less, of those who had the opportunity to meet him and know the trends on the occasion of that trip.

A visit to the Rotoli cemetery in Palermo, while film director Carmelo Bene reads a fragment of Antonio Pizzuto's book "Signorina Rosina".

A visit to the Rotoli cemetery in Palermo, while film director Carmelo Bene reads a fragment of Antonio Pizzuto's book "Signorina Rosina".

A visit to the Rotoli cemetery in Palermo, while film director Carmelo Bene reads a fragment of Antonio Pizzuto's book "Signorina Rosina".

Ciprì and Maresco's delicious documentary portrays Sicilian super-agent Enzo Castagna, a man with some 20,000 extras on his books, who has worked with the likes of Loren, Pasolini, Rosi, Coppola and Cimino (indeed, virtually anyone who's ever chosen to film in Palermo). It's typically weird, witty and wonderful, partly due to its subject, a self-styled 'little big man' who consents to be described as 'almighty' and 'the greatest contributor to Italian cinema in the last 35 years'. The local favourite has also done time for bribery, but refuses to comment on Cosa Nostra. The film is as astonishing as its subject. Shot in luscious b/w, it's driven forward by an offscreen interrogator who alternates between ludicrously hyperbolic flattery and forthright questions about corruption and crime. It also serves as a study of the way ethics get abandoned in the unending pursuit of fame, wealth and self-esteem.

Ciprì and Maresco's delicious documentary portrays Sicilian super-agent Enzo Castagna, a man with some 20,000 extras on his books, who has worked with the likes of Loren, Pasolini, Rosi, Coppola and Cimino (indeed, virtually anyone who's ever chosen to film in Palermo). It's typically weird, witty and wonderful, partly due to its subject, a self-styled 'little big man' who consents to be described as 'almighty' and 'the greatest contributor to Italian cinema in the last 35 years'. The local favourite has also done time for bribery, but refuses to comment on Cosa Nostra. The film is as astonishing as its subject. Shot in luscious b/w, it's driven forward by an offscreen interrogator who alternates between ludicrously hyperbolic flattery and forthright questions about corruption and crime. It also serves as a study of the way ethics get abandoned in the unending pursuit of fame, wealth and self-esteem.

Ciprì and Maresco's delicious documentary portrays Sicilian super-agent Enzo Castagna, a man with some 20,000 extras on his books, who has worked with the likes of Loren, Pasolini, Rosi, Coppola and Cimino (indeed, virtually anyone who's ever chosen to film in Palermo). It's typically weird, witty and wonderful, partly due to its subject, a self-styled 'little big man' who consents to be described as 'almighty' and 'the greatest contributor to Italian cinema in the last 35 years'. The local favourite has also done time for bribery, but refuses to comment on Cosa Nostra. The film is as astonishing as its subject. Shot in luscious b/w, it's driven forward by an offscreen interrogator who alternates between ludicrously hyperbolic flattery and forthright questions about corruption and crime. It also serves as a study of the way ethics get abandoned in the unending pursuit of fame, wealth and self-esteem.

En un Palermo degradado, poético y grotesco, suceden tres episodios surrealistas que tienen a un pobre jugador, un anciano homosexual y un improbable Mesías. (FILMAFFINITY)

En un Palermo degradado, poético y grotesco, suceden tres episodios surrealistas que tienen a un pobre jugador, un anciano homosexual y un improbable Mesías. (FILMAFFINITY)

En un Palermo degradado, poético y grotesco, suceden tres episodios surrealistas que tienen a un pobre jugador, un anciano homosexual y un improbable Mesías. (FILMAFFINITY)

Ciprì and Maresco are fierce critics of post-modern society. They bear witness to the colonization of the imagination attributable in part to the omnipresence of mass communications and the globalization of neo-capitalist values. Their works, scatological in the literal but especially in the metaphorical and etiological sense, denounce social institutions and practices thought to be at the root of injustice, inequality and criminality.

Daniele Ciprì short film

The Italian duo Ciprì & Maresco, known to be cynical deconstructionists, weave a fascinating film around memories of a decadent Sicily. Ruins, memories of ruins - memories are ruins. This thoroughly surrealist piece unfolds like a dream, with no clear direction but the haunting feeling of familiarity and the ready acceptance of otherness as oneness.

The best italian film of the 90's, the most extreme and radical work since SALO', a ruthless representation, in a surreal-metaphorical key, of a civilization condemned to worshipping its own blindness. The two sicilian directors use a language free from compromise and from the traditional storyline rules: the movie is photographed in a sharp and very contrasting black & white, with no beautiful pimp music, and lacks a logical story. There are no women (the ones we see are actually men), and the language is strict sicilian dialect. The directing style is characterized by long fixed shots on a post-atomic world, which is really present-day Palermo, inhabited by fat people in socks and underwear who burp and fart while roaming around smelly alleyways and waste dumps.

An anthology of video short films directed by Daniele Ciprì and Franco Maresco. interviews conducted by the two directors with alienated, crazy and squalid characters of a desolate Sicily.

Short 35mm experimental film featuring Sam Fuller.

Short 35mm experimental film featuring Sam Fuller.