Press Releases  ·  20 | 01 | 2016

L’immagine e la parola: four days with Blutch and Mattotti

“Pour en finir avec le cinéma” Blutch ed. Dargaud; “Eros” Lorenzo Mattotti

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The Festival del film Locarno's spring event – March 10 – 13, 2016 will revolve around the Graphic novel.

Following the focus on writing in the first person with Emmanuel Carrère, the fourth edition of L’immagine e la parola opts to examine the world of the Graphic novel, hosting two of its most stimulating practitioners and interpreters of the contemporary world. If film is the art of movement, the Graphic novel does the opposite, using images and words to freeze the moment, charging it with significance. As if it was a matter of film frames stolen from passing time, these vignettes develop a language that has a close relationship with film, and one that is never commonplace.

In recent years the world of the Graphic Novel seems to have invaded cinema screens, importing its hyper-realistic graphics and surreal mark-making. Looking beyond the currently fashionable, and seeking to get to the roots of a relationship between two expressive instruments that are always in dialogue, we have invited two unique artists to discover how they view film and how this relates to their own practice. Blutch and Lorenzo Mattotti – two of the most visionary observers of the present day – are more more than guests, they are companions to whom we have offered house-keys to the next edition of L’immagine e la parola, asking them to suggest what films to show, bringing two imaginative worlds into contact. I am already grateful to Blutch and Lorenzo Mattotti, whose generous contributions I know will enrich and engage the audience for the next edition”. Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director

Blutch is one of the leading creators of graphic novels in France. Known for the adventures of Petit Christian, published for the first time in 2008 in Charlie Hebdo, which have been translated all over the world, and won the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2009. The artist has established a solid and ongoing relationship to film, having worked with Alain Resnais and directors from the younger generations such as Mathieu Amalric and Bruno Podalydès. His essay Pour en finir avec le Cinéma, described by Cahiers du Cinéma as one of the most important theoretical works about film, is a reflection on the seventh art at the dawn of the 21st century.

Lorenzo Mattotti emerged in the late 1970s as part of the Bologna based collective Valvoline, and in 1984 produced Fuochi, a story about a soldier going mad, which has been translated all over the world, and won several major international awards. Mattotti currently works as an illustrator for leading international magazines, including The New Yorker, Le Monde, Das Magazin, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Nouvel Observateur, Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica. Numerous exhibitions have been dedicated to his work, including, most recently, one at the Leclerc Foundation. His most well known publications include Signor Spartaco, Doctor Nefasto, L'uomo alla finestra and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Famous for his dreamlike style, which has attracted the attention of major contemporary artists, Mattotti's drawings open up a productive dialogue with film. In 2000 he created the official poster for the Cannes Film Festival, and in 2004 contributed to the film Eros by Michelangelo Antonioni, Wong Kar-wai and Steven Soderbergh, creating the linking segments between the three episodes. Both he and Blutch created segements for the 2007 omnibus animated feature Peur(s) du noir and in 2012 he worked on the animated feature Pinocchio, directed by Enzo D’Alò, who also created La gabbianella e il gatto.

The fourth edition of L'immagine e la parola, whose Artistic Director is Carlo Chatrian, and is curated by film critic Daniela Persico, is part of the Primavera Locarnese program and will be held at the Teatro Kursaal in Locarno and Monte Verità in Ascona.

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