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Il Muro

Manfredo Manfredi
Italy, 1970 / 12’11”

A film about the horrors of war and the moral responsibility of the artist who wants to represent it. This gothic film was made in 1970, the years of the great fear of the Bomb, the Cold War dominating international politics and the Vietnam conflict in its infancy. The idea for the film stems from these fears, which so animated the conscience of the time. The film is a reflection on violence and on the alleged ‘truth’ of the work of art: truth is in life, art is a dream… perhaps. The film makes use of the author’s first attempts at direct painting both in the eye of the camera and directly on film.

Regia, soggetto e animazione: Manfredo Manfredi
Musica: Vieri Tosatti
Fotografia: Franco Zambelli
Produzione: Corona Cinematografica

Manfredo Manfredi

He graduated in Scenography at the Academy of Fine Arts, in 1958. He began his activity as a scenographer in 1960, in 1962, he made the drawings for the Carosello theme song and sets for films, documentaries and television shows. His experimentation in the field of animated cinema began in 1963, with short films denouncing social wrongs such as ‘Ballata per un pezzo da novanta’ (1966) on the Sicilian mafia, or ‘Su sàmbene non est abba’ (1968), on banditry in Sardinia. From 1968 to 1975, he directed several short films produced by Corona Cinematografica. In 1975, ‘Uva salamanna’ won the Moscow International Film Festival. In 1977, he was nominated at the Oscars for best animated short film with ‘Dedalo’. In the following years he became a member of the Roman Cineteam and he made institutional films, TV specials, dozens of commercials and TV theme songs. In the 1990s, he made two remarkable splendid adaptations of literary works: the XXVI Canto of Dante’s Inferno (known as Ulysses canto), and ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino. At the same time, as a painter, he developed his research in the field of abstract expressionism, an activity that continues to this day. After 20 years entirely dedicated to painting, he has returned to animated cinema with a new film entitled ‘Lo spirito della notte’.