Year: 1956
Duration: 52'
London, the East End, the mid-1950s: children playing among the rubble from the air raids; bustling factories and ports. In this setting, two deaf mutes live their daily life: they work; they relax at the pub; they live with a family which rents them a room. The simple actions and roaming are marked by their condition, their deafness highlights their extraneousness to the surrounding world and makes them vulnerable.
Biography
film director
Lorenza Mazzetti
Lorenza Mazzetti moved to London right after WWII and studied at the Slade School of Fine Arts. Between 1952 and 1953, she stole some school equipment and film and secretly made her first short, K, which introduced her to London’s movie world. In a certain sense, the movie anticipated the Free Cinema manifesto, which Mazzetti herself signed in 1956 with Lindsay Anderson, Tony Richardson and Karel Reisz. Thanks to the support of Denis Forman, the director of the British Film Institute, and with the help of people such as Anderson himself, she shot the medium-length Together (1956), with which she participated at the first Free Cinema screenings and at the Cannes Film Festival, where she received a Mention au film de recherche. After returning to Italy, she next dedicated herself to writing and published the autobiographical novel The Sky Falls, with which she won the 1962 Viareggio Prize, and which was followed by Rage (1963) and Uccidi il padre e la madre (1969). At the same time, she also dedicated herself to journalism, collaborating with the journal “Vie Nuove;” to theater, founding and directing the Puppet Theatre in Rome; and to painting. In 2014, she published Diario londinese.
FILMOGRAFIA
K (cm, 1954), Together (mm, 1956).
Declaration
film director
“I took the movie to the first Free Cinema exhibit. The participants included Gregory Markopoulos, Kenneth Anger and John Cassavetes. It was a success. A few days later, Lindsay Anderson told me the film would represent England at Cannes. I looked at him, incredulous and terrorized. I said I couldn’t present myself dressed the way I was. ‘Don’t worry,’ he replied, laughing. ‘We’ll make a collection among friends to buy you a dress.’”
Cast
& Credits
regia, soggetto/director, story
Lorenza Mazzetti
sceneggiatura/screenplay
Lorenza Mazzetti, Denis Horne
fotografia/cinematography
Hamed Hadari
montaggio/film editing
Lorenza Mazzetti, John Fletcher
musica/music
Daniele Paris
suono/sound
John Fletcher
interpreti/cast
Michael Andrews, Edoardo Paolozzi, Valy, Denis Richardson, Cecilia May
produzione/production
British Film Institute
Lorenza Mazzetti
sceneggiatura/screenplay
Lorenza Mazzetti, Denis Horne
fotografia/cinematography
Hamed Hadari
montaggio/film editing
Lorenza Mazzetti, John Fletcher
musica/music
Daniele Paris
suono/sound
John Fletcher
interpreti/cast
Michael Andrews, Edoardo Paolozzi, Valy, Denis Richardson, Cecilia May
produzione/production
British Film Institute
