Between documentary and fiction
27 December 1933 2 November 1990 Gianni Amico is born in Melbourne on December 27, 1933. He began his career in cinema with the International Festival of Latin American Cinema in 1960, created and directed for 27 years, in collaboration with the cultural association Columbianum, founded in Genoa from Jesuit father Angel harp. You play five festival editions (the first two in Santa Margherita Ligure, the third and fourth in Melbourne and fifth in Genoa), the top four by Friend. In the five years that the festival works, among many difficulties, in Liguria arrive all larger South American filmmakers. The event, at the cultural and film is a success because it allows not only for Europeans to learn South American cinema, but also to the same South American filmmakers to speak, work together, exchange ideas and then heated discussions on other ideas. Among the many advantages it also to mark the end of the diplomatic isolation of Cuba: for the first time the Cuban authorities are in Italy and meet diplomatic representatives of other countries. South American cinema in the ' 60 's situation isn't the greatest, composed of many small strands of which three main: Cuban, Brazilian and Argentinean cinema. At the exhibition there are representatives of the three major movements, Ligurian and minor ones. This massive presence of filmmakers in Liguria brings South American many advantages: first, for the first time outside of the South American continent there is an event that is interested in this film; from a critical standpoint and development of ideas, always does well when criticism or the praise coming from one direction more neutral, as it may be to a European than a South American. It's definitely an opportunity of recourse for a cinema that until then Yes is praised in the national borders, but is smothered by geographical boundaries. The festival is also a time for reflection and exchange of ideas because, by own admission of South American filmmakers, this was an opportunity for the various films of reunion battles, exchanges of ideas on how to make movies, to agree on common intentions, I mean talk, something that doesn't happen in the continent, conflict and horizons are very different. Instead the festival, forced to coexist in the same event, they break so many barriers of miscommunication, misunderstanding or barriers of intent up even different, but there are dialogues, debates, speeches and defenses, posters (Rocha: A estética da fome). It was an event attended by great directors, especially Brazilians, by Glauber Rocha in Nelson Pereira dos Santos, by Leopoldo Torres Nilsson to Paulo Cezar Saracens, by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade to Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. cinema Europe becomes aware of the many problems that Latin American filmmakers face to work (political, economic, social, organizational issues), who try to overcome to fight their cultural battle. On the eve of the event of 1965 comes from Rome a Brazilian Colonel who wants to cancel the first retrospective of cinema novo Festival of Genoa. Glauber Rocha during the screenings paste the mouth to the ear of the Colonel, who eventually authorized the event, because those movies are a credit to the country. For the Brazilian cinema is a great triumph, but of international film festivals in Latin America, to Genoa not organized anymore. The work of a film exhibition is also displaying the cultural background, economic, political and social Director, of his work in the country where it is turned. Later she moved to Rome, where he continues to work as a cultural organizer working with the Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero in Porretta Terme (in 1964 care a monographic section dedicated to the Nouvelle vague) and with the Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema di Pesaro (part of the selection Committee in 1966 and in 1967); in practical scope participates in the production of "Era notte a Roma" (1960) by Roberto Rossellini, in 1964 writes with Bernardo Bertolucci's screenplay "before the revolution" (1964) and he made his first short film "we insist! Freedom now Suite "; in the same year, demonstrating his love for jazz acts in "notes for a film about jazz" documentary about the Bologna jazz festival; in these years he started to take the first trips to Brazil, to shoot documentaries "young Brazilians" (1967) and "Ah! Vem o samba ": from these first voyages, made on behalf of the Rai, the idea and the realization of" the tropics ". He collaborates again as a screenwriter with Bertolucci in "Partner" (1968) and "Der Leone have sept cabeças Glauber Rocha in" (1970), and as an Assistant Director with Godard in "Vent d'est" (1969). Continues to make documentaries and fiction for Rai; among the documentaries: "the mirror reversed." A working experience of self-management, more film wise, and "Your love is like the sea" (1976); fiction films, "the inquest" (1971), "return" (1973), an intimate film, "five seasons" (1976), tale set in a hospice, where the construction of a crib becomes the construction of a utopia. The film is shot in Genoa, "the more cinematic city I know, may become like San Francisco, those cities that take a shot and people recognize", and "elective affinities" (1979), by Goethe, as fiction; "Quick hands". "Young people, women, factory" (1981), another documentary. In 1995 Godard dedicated to Italian cinema chapter of his Friend "Histories du cinema"; in 1990 Gianni Friend appears in the "Dicionário dos cineastas brasileiros" by f. a. Miranda. In 1983 in Rome organizes "Bahia de todos os sambas" (1983-1996) great musical event, set up in the Circus Maximus, which was attended by the largest Brazilian singers including Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Batatinha, Nana Vasconcelos, Joao Gilberto, the Trio eletrico and others; a unique event, for the simple fact that reorganise it with all the artists who participated would cost untenable. Testimony of the big party organized at Magoo's "Bahia de todos os sambas" (1983-1996) filmed in three hands from Friend, Leon Hirszman and Paulo Cezar Saracens; curated and assembled by the latter, after the disappearance of the other two. Friend defines his film: "I care about remain loyal to a type of cinema and change continuously. Each movie, in the end, isn't that the result of a dialectic tension: that between the type of image that you want to accomplish and what you can get. The problem that each filmmaker tackles in her work is the actual ability of materialization of the desired image. In this sense my cinema is a constant, obsessive pursuit on the principle of "morality" of the image". Gianni friend dies on November 2, 1990, died of an incurable disease, while engaged in the project of a film about the guitarist Django Reinhardt.