| Marco Bellocchio | |
|---|---|
| Born | 9 November 1939 Bobbio, Italy |
| Occupation | Film director Screenwriter Actor |
| Years active | 1962 - present |
Marco Bellocchio (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmarko belˈlɔkkjo]; born 9 November 1939) is an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor.
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Born in Bobbio, near Piacenza, Marco Bellochio had a strict Catholic upbringing - his father was a lawyer, his mother a schoolteacher. [1] He began studying philosophy in Milan but then decided to enter film school, making his first film, Fists in the Pocket, (Pugni in tasca), funded by family members and shot on family property, in 1965. He made a big impact on radical Italian cinema in the mid-sixties, and was a friend of Pasolini. In 1968 he joined the Communist Union, and began to make politically militant cinema. More recently however, in a 2002 interview, he remarked : "I can talk about my personal ideas but Marxism has little to do with it now. Today politics means administration. No party is now proposing a radical change of anything, and radical change is no longer very interesting to me as an artist." [2] He is an atheist.[3]
His films include China is Near (1967), Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina (Slap the Monster on Page One) (1972), Nel Nome del Padre (In the name of the Father - a satire on a Catholic boarding school that shares affinities with Lindsay Anderson's If...) (1972), Victory March (1976), Salto nel Vuoto (1980), Henry IV (1984), Il diavolo in corpo (Devil in the Flesh 1986) and, L'ora di religione (My Mother's Smile, 2002), which told the story of a wealthy Italian artist, a 'default-Marxist and atheist', who suddenly discovers that the Vatican is proposing to make his detested mother a saint.
In 1991, he won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival for his film The Conviction.[4]
In 1995, he directed a documentary about the Red Brigades and the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, entitled Sogni infranti (Broken Dreams). In 2003, he directed a feature film on the same theme, Buongiorno, notte (Good Morning, Night). In 2006 his film The Wedding Director was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.[5] In 2009, he directed Vincere, which was in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. He recently finished Sorelle Mai an experimental film that was shot over ten years with the students of six separate workshops playing themselves. He will be awarded with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 68th Venice International Film Festival in September.[6]
At Bobbio, each year, Bellocchio directs the Laboratory "Farecinema" and "Bobbio Film Festival", with performances throughout the summer in the courtyard of Abbey of Saint Columban.
Laboratory "Farecinema – meet the authors" is the brainchild of Maestro Marco Bellocchio who wanted to create in his hometown, Bobbio, a laboratory for teaching the art of film direction. Already the first edition was held, parallel to the laboratory, an evening film festival open to the public with a film club at the end of screenings where people participated representing the film projected. In 2005 becomes the exhibition Festival, taking the name of "Bobbio Film Festival" and Marco Bellocchio establishing the award "The Hunchback of Gold" in reference to symbols of Bobbio, the medieval Ponte Gobbo, which will reward the film judged the best among those proposed. To review films that work as he moved in the cloister of Saint Columban, where traditionally takes the event. In parallel, the laboratory continues Farecinema that will become a film school and acting, and the town of Bobbio and its also become a movie set with the possibility of participation of extras also taken from the street.