TORINO AMARA

Gino Brignolio

"Gino Brignolo used a tiny portable, wind-up Paillard camera, and a handbag whose internal structure was built out of pieces from his sons toy erector set. He had some friends with a whim to be actors, some moviolas, and an infinite amount of time and patience. He was a militant in movement. He used film equipment to spread in the form of images the living reality of those times full of minuscule but very meaningful facts. He paid attention to the formal aspects of film without abusing them, but he did not ever forget that the aim of his undertaking was the document, the witnessing. He was born in 1921, and enrolled in the army right before the second world war. He was in the army until September 8, 1943, when he left it to make the choice of joining the resistance which was to mark the rest of his life strongly. After the war, he became an office worker for the national social security bureau (INPS), where he had two passions - alpinism and photography. After he gave up alpinism, he concentrated his commitment on the image. He began his activity in amateur film about the mid- 1950's, at first with the INPS leisure time club, and then with the Cineclub Piemonte, associated with the FEDIC. From his first attempts, he always got good results. His films gained the most varied recognition and won national and international contests. The urban way of life is particularly evident in his cinema - his look at the city of Turin with the changes it went through during the economic boom. His are perhaps the only images that show the arrival of the southern Italian families at Porta Nuova train station, their settling in Turin, and their hard struggle for their place as citizens. In the background, we see the old Pellerina, the houses of Porta Palazzo, the Lungodora area, the 'porto di Porta Nuova', and the outer boroughs under construction." (Franco Orsini).

FILMOGRAFIA

Un giorno a Venezia (1957), La città si desta (1957), Panem Nostrum (1958), Esodo (1960), Val d'Ayas (1961), Treno del sole (1960), Torino Amara (1961), Gli italiani scrissero sui muri (196 1), Domenica in città (1961), La fontana (1961), Periferia (1962), Paese senza tempo (1963), Anno di grazia 1964 (1964), La Spagna (1965), Epilogo (1966), L'Isola (1969), No Han Muerto (1970), Santauto da Torino (1972), Ragazzi non disturbate (1972), Il viaggio (1979), Feria d'Agosto (1979), La vendetta (1979).