9° FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE CINEMA GIOVANI
Italian Competition 1991
Leçons de ténèbres n. 2 e 3
by Tonino De Bernardi
Country: Italy
Year: 1991
Duration: 45'
«This is the second of a series of leçons which I have been making, starting from last year. For now, there are four of them. It is my little serial. Even if I don't know TV well that is, I don't do TV the tradition of doing things in episodes carne first from TV.
This is an illustrious and antique tradition. This is why I like it: it never finishes and it tends to repeat itself. And my serial is a special serial that takes up certain ways of narrating again, links them and decomposes them, not according to the rules of TV but according to the music of Couperin. Hence they are lessons of the dark, and the lamentations of Jeremiah the prophet. Here too they go back to ancient times. That is, you think about the fall of the ideal city and lament its fall. The present lesson (numbers two and three) proceeds into the 'interior castle': as Theresa of Avila termed it, and begins with the story of Maxim Ivanovich, where they talk about his wickedness and about the poor widow who loses all her children one by one. And this is Dostoyevsky. So this leçon joins Theresa with Dostoyevsky but the story of Maxim Ivanovich is only told, that is, read. One searches to give him a face, which could be the face of a certain faraway man, but that man is someone else. It could also be a story of injustices and the widow could really be the upset woman. Faces and voices from a distant world are also evoked, a world that looks at us from down there against the light." (Tonino De Bernardi)
Biography
film director
Tonino De Bernardi
(Chivasso, Turin, Italy, 1937) was an underground filmmaker from 1967 to 1983. He shot his first “official” feature in 1987: the film Elettra (based on Sophocles’ tragedy), produced by RAI3, involved the participation of non-professional actors from Casalborgone, where he worked as a middle school teacher until 1992. Viaggio a Sodoma (1988) was the co-winner, with Jean-Luc Godard’s film, of the World Wide Video Festival in Den Hag. He participated at the Venice Film Festival in competition with Appassionate (1999), and in Orizzonti with Médée miracle (2007), starring Isabelle Huppert. A restless filmmaker overflowing with projects, he makes at least a film a year. In 2018, together with his wife Mariella, he’s also protagonist of Teresa Villaverde’s O termómetro de Galileu, presented at TFF, in Onde section, just like many others films of De Bernardis'.
FILMOGRAFIA
Dei (1968-1969), Il quadrato (1971-1972), Il rapporto coniugal parentale (1973-1976), L’io e le aggregazioni (1977-1979), Donne (1980-1982), Viaggio a Sodoma (1988), Piccoli orrori (1994), Fiori del destino (1997), Appassionate (1999), Rosatigre (2000), La strada nel bosco (2001), Farelavita (2001), Lei (2002), Le cinéma dans tous ses états (ep. Terra, cm, 2002), Serva e padrona (2003), Latitudini (2003), Marlene de Sousa (2004), Passato presente (2005), Accoltellati (Accoltellatori) (2006), Médée miracle (2007), Pane/Piazza delle camelie (2008), Butterfly - L’attesa (2010), Ed è così. Circa. Più o meno (2011), Casa dolce casa (2012), Hotel de l’Univers (2013), Jour et nuit - Delle donne e degli uomini perduti (2014), Il sogno dell’India - Quarant’anni dopo (2015), Ifigenia in Aulide (2018), Resurrezione (2019), Ou n'etes vous? (mm, 2022), Universi circoscritti 2 (2022).
Cast
& Credits
Director and screenplay: Tonino De Bernardi.
Editor: Stefano Francia.
Cast: Elena Graziosi, Yoshishige Yoshida, Veronica De Bernardi, Anna Maria Canzonieri, Stefano Francia, Ernaldo Data, Anna Coppo, Claudia Capone, Giulietta De Bernardi, Mariella Navale, Marco Balzaretti,Marta Palitto.
Production company: Assessorato alla Gioventù del Comune di Torino, Cooperativa 28 Dicembre, via Fabro 6, Torino, tel. 539274.
Editor: Stefano Francia.
Cast: Elena Graziosi, Yoshishige Yoshida, Veronica De Bernardi, Anna Maria Canzonieri, Stefano Francia, Ernaldo Data, Anna Coppo, Claudia Capone, Giulietta De Bernardi, Mariella Navale, Marco Balzaretti,Marta Palitto.
Production company: Assessorato alla Gioventù del Comune di Torino, Cooperativa 28 Dicembre, via Fabro 6, Torino, tel. 539274.
