K.O.
Manfredo Manfredi
Italia, 1969 / 10’46”
It’s the story of a double failure. The ambulance runs through the night, the doctors try to save a man, his heart is still beating. On a railway bridge is another man crouched over the track, he’s an ex-boxer, today a nut seller in the same stadium where he once competed. Through the flood of his memories, we witness his last fight up to the final knockout which goes on to link to the initial scene of the film with the ambulance, the doctors and the heart which slowly comes to a halt. The man on the bridge jumps but is saved….
It’s morning, the early sun reveals the man sitting near the river… Life goes on.
Regia, soggetto e animazione: Manfredo Manfredi
Musica: Franco Brugnolini
Fotografia: Elio Gagliardo
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’.