La Manza
Umbria in Celluloide
By Chiara Ortolani
Italia, 2021, 53’
Thursday 7th october Cinema Méliès – 18.00
SCHEDA FILM
Writer and director: Chiara Ortolani
With: Giancarlo Pretotto, Bruno Bellucci, Stefania Fumanti
Edition: Elisabetta Giannini, Pietro D’Onofrio
Executive producer: Alice Mariani
Production assistant: Nicole Albrizio
Produced by: Antonietta De Lillo per marechiarofilm in collaborazione con La Malcontenta
Direct sound : John Giordano, Luigi Pretotto, Francesco Scapicchi Julia Souchtchinskaia
Film titles: Elisabetta Giannini
Color correction: Simona Infante
Sound edition: Beatrice Mele
Mix: Carlo Purpura
Subtitles: John Giordano
Music: Kleinkief – Le Mucche Intelligenti (T. Zane) courtesy of Dischi Soviet Studio
Special mention to the laboratory FARE UN FILM made in the context of L’UOMO E LA BESTIA participatory film
Umbria in Celluloide
About marechiarofilm:
Founded by Antonietta De Lillo, the company has always been able to count on her know-how and thirty years of experience as a director and entrepreneur, always transversal between different formats, genres and languages. An experimental aspect that has become a peculiar feature of marechiarofilm, especially standing out in the project of the participatory film, which, in 2016 made her creator Antonietta De Lillo win a special Silver Ribbon for her innovative journey in the cinema of reality.
SYNOPSIS
The film is about profound contradictions and the attraction for the dark. The man who embodies all of this is a giant who enters into symbiosis with the animals he looks after. With the head bent a little to the side, the eyes rotating upwards to chase the images being narrated, which are actual and mixed with noises and smells like the stables he is regularly in.
He is an expert in animal husbandry using intensive farming to produce the maximum.
Cows, horses and large-scale distribution are inherent part of his life and he talks as if nothing else existed. You enter his mind as in a dream. The cow, the Chianina cow, the Maremmana, the genetic research of its forms, fattening and the inexorable end. Determining the animal’s body, enlarging it at the right places, increasing muscle mass. The flesh of the animals cannot be distinguished from his, he wraps them, touches them and evaluates them, only gradually we can understand who is who, the bodies are revealed, the story of the cow is revealed, his life is revealed.
This man lets us enter a world that reveals his and our contradictions, the rawness of breeding, the deep relationship between him and the beasts.
Logline
Cows, the weigh, gigantic somatism, the hooks, the slaughterhouse, trotting horses and this big man whose eyes move out of control between two dimensions, between blood and tender affection.
Chiara Ortolani
Chiara Ortolani was born in Todi on March 25, 1986. After high school, she graduated in Literature and Philosophy at the Roma Tre University, where she attended the visual arts workshop held by Lino Strangis and the screenwriting workshop held by Marco Pettenello. After graduation she attended the Filmmaking workshop held by Giulio Reale, Adriano Tagliavia and Gianmaria Scibilia at the Act Multimedia School in Rome. In 2009, she was selected to participate in the RaiEri script and creative writing course.
She continues her training at the London Film School and subsequently at the CSC Lab of photography held by Giuseppe Lanci. In the meantime, she writes and directs several short films among which “Decoupage” – presented in the youth section at the Todi Arte Festival 2013 -, “Bride” – presented at PerSo, Perugia Social Film Festival 2017 – and “War Rugs” – presented at the CinemaZERO Trento 2017 Festival and Umbria Film Festival 2018.
Her project “Conversation of Death” was among the finalists of the Solinas Documentary Award for Cinema 2018.
In 2019, she attended the advanced training course in film directing held by Marco Bellocchio. With “La Manza” project, she received a special mention at the Fare un Film workshop, created by the Association Fuori dal Pollaio in collaboration with SIAE, the Lazio Region and marechiarofilm.