Working closely with actors and developing their films in collaboration have been an essential components in the aesthetics and politics of the cinema of Straub and Huillet. This session will focus on this aspect of their work by looking closely at their films based on the writings of Elio Vittorini and Cesare Pavese and shot in Buti near Pisa, starting with
Sicilia! in 1998 and continuing until 2010.
Scholar and filmmaker
Romano Guelfi from Italy, who himself acted in and worked with Huillet and Straub on their Italian films, will talk about their engagement with the Teatro Francesco di Bartolo in Buti. His presentation ‘For a People that are Missing’ will give an insight into the way the filmmakers built a community of collaborators and friends to make their films during the extended periods they spent in Buti, often performing the text of their films before shooting them. Among other things he will show excerpts of his film
Dell’Avventura (2010).
In his presentation ‘”I had Never Felt Such Joy Before”. Acting in the Cinema of Straub and Huillet’ scholar
Manuel Ramos-Martinez will explore how, from popular oral traditions to Brechtian metholodogies, from the joys of discipline to the radical ways of breathing a text, Huillet and Straub’s work reimagines acting in front of a camera but also reinvigorates our concept of action altogether.
The event will end at approximately 5pm. There will be a coffee and tea break with coffee, tea and biscuits provided at ca 3pm.
The following films will be shown during the course of the afternoon:
The Green and the Stone. Straub-Huillet in Buti, Dir: Armin Linke in collaboration with Rinaldo Censi, Giulia Bruno and Giuseppe Ielasi, Italy/Germany, 2017, HD, colour, 42.30’, with English subtitles.
Quei loro incontri, These Encounters of Theirs, Dir. Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Italy/France, 2005, 35mm, colour, 68 mins., in Italian with English subtitles.
Le Streghe, femmes entre elles, The Witches, Women among Themselves, Dir. Jean-Marie. Straub, France/Italy, 2009, 35mm, colour, 21 mins., in Italian with English subtitles.
Romano Guelfi is a filmmaker and a teacher in cinema and audiovisual media at the Art High School in Lucca; Italy. He collaborated closely with Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet on the films they made in Buti as assistant director starting with
Sicilia! (1998) up to
La madre (2011) and he acted in
Quei loro incontri (2005) and
Umilati (2002). He shot also all the theatrical plays staged in the Francesco di Bartolo Theatre in Pisa during the Straub-Huillet film productions in Buti. His film
Dell'avventura (2011) documents Jean-Marie Straub's work process while working on
Le streghe (
The Witches 2008).
Manu Ramos is a lecturer in the department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London. The cinema of Straub and Huillet has been fundamental in his emancipation as a spectator. His current research concerns the adventures of disobedient spectatorships.
With the kind support of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura – London
Book tickets through Eventbrite
Back
