IT
05/09/2019

The masterclass by Margarethe von Trotta


At 5:30 today, one of Europe's master filmmakers arrives at the Villa degli Autori: Margarethe von Trotta. The director of Marianne and Juliane (Golden Lion in 1981) and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum will hold a masterclass and discuss her films known for their political engagement.
As a leading exponent of New German Cinema, von Trotta has always placed women at the center of her oeuvre. Her female characters are strong, determined and courageous as they struggle against what is still a man's world. Prior to the masterclass, von Trotta received the Edipo Re Inclusion Award for Lifetime Achievement.

The award was handed out to von Trotta at Isola Edipo and included a musical tribute in the form of a solo performance by Miriam Meghnagi, the internationally renowned singer of Jewish and Mediterranean music.
On hand for the awards ceremony: the jury for the Edipo Re Inclusion Award (one of the collateral prizes at this year's Venice Film Festival), composed of Ottavia Piccolo, Giuseppe Piccioni and Giuliano Battiston.

The program at the Sala Astra on the Venice Lido features two screenings of films by von Trotta: Rosenstrasse (last night at 9 pm) and Hannah Arendt (tonight at 9:30).

At the Cinema Astra Isola Edipo is holding the international premiere of 13, A Ludodrama About Walter Benjamin by Carlos Ferrand.
This documentary is divided into 13 small chapters, which recount Benjamin's years of exile in Paris between 1933 and 1940. A film without interviews, it is guided mainly by Benjamin's thought in the form of narration and onscreen text. The story is built with three elements: scenes shot in contemporary Europe, archival footage, and animations of various styles.

"Our Ludodrama is a sensorial and fetishistic tribute that gives room to the fulgurating intuitions of the poet-philosopher. The film's various styles of footage, textures, and sources mirror the multiplicity of Benjamin's thought. The form of the film is also reminiscent of Native South American altars where sacred and secular objects come together in a joyous celebration of life. Impurity and cross-pollination inspire us. In the form of a pagan ceremony, our Ludodrama celebrates the thinker on the cinema's bastard altar. Benjamin's thought touches our era closely, as though he were an omniscient witness, present on every street corner in our big cities." [Carlos Ferrand]

For the past 35 years Carlos Ferrand has worked in Canada as a screenwriter and director and has collaborated as director of photography on about fifty films, both fiction and documentary. His interests vary from social issues to spirituality and the poetics of entertainement. In 1982, he directed the first film made in Peru about African slaves, Cimarrones.