Amid the worldwide flourishing of experimental filmmaker groups that emerged in the 1960s in the form of independent cooperatives, the Italian movement, sometimes self-designated as “underground,” stands out for its originality and aesthetic diversity, as well as for its resistance to any form of commercialization or professionalization, whether in the art market or industrial cinema. Founded in Naples in 1967 by Adamo Vergine and soon after relocated to Rome, the Cooperativa del Cinema Indipendente (1967-1971) aimed to collect and distribute the films of Italian experimental and underground filmmakers. It brought together several key figures, including Tonino De Bernardi, Pia Epremian De Silvestris, Massimo Bacigalupo, and Gianfranco Baruchello, among others—filmmakers who “embodied the amateur theorized by Stan Brakhage... and produced works of unprecedented innovation and expressive power” (Annamaria Licciardello).
Following the symposium "Italian Experimental Cinema from the 1960s/70s Revisited," co-organized in 2017 by Cinédoc and the University of Paris 8, this new screening of the Refle-x-périmental cine-club offers the opportunity to (re)discover some of the emblematic works that marked the brief but intense avventura of the CCI, between Naples, Rome and Turin, amateur and underground cinema, the intimate and the expanded. This will also be an occasion to feast your eyes on the exceptional screening of two double-screen works: Il mostro verde by Tonino De Bernardi, and Idea assurda per un filmmaker by Gianfranco Brebbia.
Thanks to : Giovanna Brebbia, Tonino De Bernardi, Massimo Bacigalupo, Pia Epremian de Silvestris, Mireille Laplace, Mirco Santi.
Screening :
Sessanta Metri per il 31 Marzo
Massimo Bacigalupo, 1968, 16mm (dig.), b&w, silent, 12’
Doppio suicidio
Pia Epremian de Silvestris, 1968, 8mm (dig.), color, sound, 10’
Perforce
Gianfranco Baruchello, 1968, 16mm, color, sound, 16’20
Il Mostro Verde
Tonino De Bernardi, Paolo Menzio, 1967, 16mm (dig.), double screen, color, sound, 24’
Idea assurda per un filmaker
Gianfranco Brebbia, 1969, Super8 (dig.), double screen, color, silent, 15’