Country: Italy
Year: 2000
Duration: 38'
Vincenzo Verzini, one of the most important international experts in development and printing in cinematographic black and white, has spent almost his entire life around films. He is the favorite technician of many famous Italian post-war directors (From Luchino Visconti to Federico Fellini, from Pietro Germi to Francesco Rosi) and has been nicknamed "little Giotto" thanks to the characteristic and disputed style which he has conferred on many famous films. He has recently restored masterpieces like Mamma Roma by Pasolini, Francesco giullare di Dio by Rossellini, Umberto D. by De Sica and Lo sceicco bianco by Fellini for Mediaset. Verzini, at eighty years of age, still continues to lock himself up in his laboratory at night, the jealous guardian of his craftsmanship.
"To know Enzo's work means to discover that in famous scenes (for example those of 8 1/2), Fellini's inimitable style is nurtured by the use of small insider secrets which Verzini disclosed to the director. It would be difficult to imagine restoring these films to their original condition without Verzini, since he worked on them at the time they were made. Italian cinema would have definitely lost the secret of a cinema that hides the movement of the camera with the movement of the bodies, that captures the accidental factor of every occurrence or thing with the suspicion that it is a mystery" (Mario Sesti).
Biography
film director
Mario Sesti
Mario Sesti (Messina, Italy, 1958) is a film critic and a documentary filmmaker. He directed, among others, The Lost Ending (2003), La voce di Pasolini (2005, codirected with Matteo Cerami), and the recent La voce di Berlinguer (2013, made with Teho Teardo). He managed the project Cinema Forever from 1998 to 2000, working on restoring several masterpieces of Italian cinema. He collaborated for thirteen years with the magazine “L’Espresso,” and he published biographies on filmmakers likes Nanni Moretti and Pietro Germi. He also wrote some thorough analyses of new Italian cinema and police movies, winning the Diego Fabbri Award in 2008 for In quel film c’è un segreto (published by Feltrinelli). In 2012 he started directing the Taormina Film Festival and he is one of the founding members and curators of the Rome Film Festival.
FILMOGRAFIA
L’ultima sequenza (doc., 2003), La voce di Pasolini (coregia Matteo Cerami, doc., 2005), Fiamme di Gadda. A spasso con l’ingegnere (doc., 2013), La voce di Berlinguer (coregia Teho Teardo, doc., 2013), Senza Lucio (doc., 2014); La voce di Fantozzi (doc., 2017), Cinecittà - I mestieri del cinema. Bernardo Bertolucci: No End Travelling (doc., 2019), Mondo sexy (doc., 2019), Altri padri (2021).
Cast
& Credits
Regia, soggetto e sceneggiatura: Mario Sesti.
Director of photography: Romano Gregorig, Michele Soffientini, Andreagiulio Sesti, Alberto Traverso.
Editor: Michele Soffientini.
Music: Marco Schiavoni.
Cast: Vincenzo Verzini, Gillo Pontecorvo, Francesco Rosi, Tatiana Morigi.
Production company: Mediaset in collaborazione con Medusafilm e Publitalia '80 e con la collaborazione di Studio Cine.
Referente: Claudio Trionfera, ufficio stampa Mediaset, via Aurelia Antica 422, 00165 Roma, tel. +39-06-663901.
Director of photography: Romano Gregorig, Michele Soffientini, Andreagiulio Sesti, Alberto Traverso.
Editor: Michele Soffientini.
Music: Marco Schiavoni.
Cast: Vincenzo Verzini, Gillo Pontecorvo, Francesco Rosi, Tatiana Morigi.
Production company: Mediaset in collaborazione con Medusafilm e Publitalia '80 e con la collaborazione di Studio Cine.
Referente: Claudio Trionfera, ufficio stampa Mediaset, via Aurelia Antica 422, 00165 Roma, tel. +39-06-663901.