22° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL
Tribute to Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi
Prigionieri della Guerra
Country: Italy
Year: 1995
Duration: 67'
Clips of archival material from the First World
War, mainly from the archives of the Czarist and the Austro-Hungarian
empires, which show prisoners of war on both sides of the conflict,
fallen soldiers, mass graves, women, children and deported refugees.
Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi work on the single frames, they tone the
colors, enlarge and reframe the images, capturing in the faces and the
bodies of unarmed and powerless individuals the sense of collective
tragedy that lurks in every war.
"A prisoner of war is a defeated person, defeated in every sense of the
word. A person who has lost his identity, who is tossed here and there:
a true prisoner, in the real meaning of the term! And in fact, in this
film you see these huge movements of people, this peregrination, this
wandering of prisoners; in the end we no longer know where they are, in
Siberia, China or Galicia." (A. Ricci Lucchi)
"They are in a certain sense migrants. And they become a prey which is
played with at will. The first thing is the exhibition of the prey: in
the film there are these 100,000 Austrian prisoners who are forced to
parade through the streets of Moscow, because the higher the number of
prisoners, the richer the prey, and the greater the army and the empire
which conquered them." (Y. Gianikian)
Biography
film director
Yervant Gianikian
Yervant Gianikian (1942), of Armenian descent, studied architecture in Venice. After moving to Milan with Angela Ricci Lucchi, they started focusing on cinema in the mid-70s, making independent and experimental productions, including the screening-performances of “scented films” and, later on, the manual manipulation of archive footage from die-toning to slow motion and various editing combinations. Their films have been screened in some of the most prestigious festivals and museums around the world. They last participated to the Torino Film Festival in 2009 with Electric Fragments N. 6 - Diario 1989. Dancing in the Dark.
FILMOGRAFIA
Erat Sora (cm, 1975), Catalogo comparativo (cm, 1975), Cataloghi non è altro gli odori che sente (cm, 1976), Profumo (cm, 1977), Un prestigiatore una miniaturista (cm, 1978), Milleunanotte (1979), Essence d’absynthe (cm, 1981), Das Lied von der Erde - Gustav Mahler (cm, 1982), Dal polo all’equatore (1986), Frammenti (1987), Passion (cm, 1988), Uomini anni vita (1990), Diario africano (cm, 1994), Aria (cm, 1994), Prigionieri della guerra (1995), Lo specchio di Diana (mm, 1996), Nocturne (cm, 1997), Io ricordo (cm, 1997), Su tutte le vette è pace (1998), Inventario balcanico (2000), Images d’Orient - Tourisme vandale (2001), Corpi. Frammenti elettrici n. 3 (cm, 2002), Rom (Uomini). Frammenti elettrici n. 1 (cm, 2002), Oh! Uomo (2004), Ghiro Ghiro Tondo (2007), Frammenti elettrici n. 6 - Diario 1989. Dancing in the Dark (2009), Pays barbare (2013).
Angela Ricci Lucchi
Angela Ricci Lucchi (Lugo di Romagna, 1942) studied art in Austria with Oskar Kokoschka. After moving to Milan with Yarvant Gianikian, they started focusing on cinema in the mid-70s, making independent and experimental productions, including the screening-performances of “scented films” and, later on, the manual manipulation of archive footage from die-toning to slow motion and various editing combinations. Their films have been screened in some of the most prestigious festivals and museums around the world. They last participated to the Torino Film Festival in 2009 with Electric Fragments N. 6 - Diario 1989. Dancing in the Dark.
FILMOGRAFIA
Erat Sora (cm, 1975), Catalogo comparativo (cm, 1975), Cataloghi non è altro gli odori che sente (cm, 1976), Profumo (cm, 1977), Un prestigiatore una miniaturista (cm, 1978), Milleunanotte (1979), Essence d’absynthe (cm, 1981), Das Lied von der Erde - Gustav Mahler (cm, 1982), Dal polo all’equatore (1986), Frammenti (1987), Passion (cm, 1988), Uomini anni vita (1990), Diario africano (cm, 1994), Aria (cm, 1994), Prigionieri della guerra (1995), Lo specchio di Diana (mm, 1996), Nocturne (cm, 1997), Io ricordo (cm, 1997), Su tutte le vette è pace (1998), Inventario balcanico (2000), Images d’Orient - Tourisme vandale (2001), Corpi. Frammenti elettrici n. 3 (cm, 2002), Rom (Uomini). Frammenti elettrici n. 1 (cm, 2002), Oh! Uomo (2004), Ghiro Ghiro Tondo (2007), Frammenti elettrici n. 6 - Diario 1989. Dancing in the Dark (2009), Pays barbare (2013).
