SYNESTHESIA CAIRO 13 by Maged El Mahedy | in collaboration with AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

Gli ultimi straordinari trent’anni della scena artistica cinese attraverso lo sguardo di una testimone di eccezione. Monica Dematté, critica d’arte, sinologa sui generis, tra i sei stranieri che hanno avuto maggiore influenza nell’evoluzione dell’arte cinese contemporanea. Realizzato utilizzando repertori inediti riguardanti l’arte cinese contemporanea filmati a partire dal 1990, interviste dell’epoca e recenti (in italiano e/o cinese) ad alcuni dei più importanti protagonisti degli ultimi decenni, il film accompagna Monica nel suo viaggio alla ricerca e valorizzazione dello “spirituale nell’arte”, cioè degli aspetti meno materiali esistenti (dove esistenti) nella ricerca artistica, marcando fieramente le distanze dal mondo puramente commerciale dell’arte contemporanea presentata dalle grandi gallerie.
A seguire incontro con Monica Dematté (critica d’arte, sinologa), Gian Carlo Calza (docente di Storia dell’Arte dell’India e dell’Asia Orientale, Università “Ca’ Foscari Venezia”) e Du Silong (collaboratore del “Mo Art Space”)

SOLO DI CORDATA. Esplorando Renato Casarotto. Buffet offerto da “Manna”

L’esperimento umano “di uno dei più puri e meno celebrati alpinisti di tutti i tempi” svela che cosa succede all’animo umano quando, penetrando in solitudine nella primordialità del mondo naturale, arriva a confrontarsi con l’origine.Un fedele ritratto filmico del fortissimo scalatore solitario che, ripercorrendo le sue più famose imprese alpinistiche e grazie a preziosi materiali di repertorio inediti uniti alla voce dei suoi più intimi amici e compagni di cordata, racconta, con pensieri e voce dello stesso Casarotto, la ricerca umana celata dietro l’esigenza dell’azione alpinistica immersa nella natura più selvaggia. 

THE SPACE IN BETWEEN. Marina Abramović in Brazil. A Road Movie

A mixture between road movie and spiritual thriller, the film brings an unprecedented approach of the intimate creative process of one of the most important artists of our time. Pioneering performance artist Marina Abramović travels through the remote areas of Brazil to experience sacred rituals and reveal her creative process amidst the wonders of the landscape. From visits with healers, sages, shamans, and sects, to intimate personal rituals and experiences within the natural landscape, the documentary follows Abramović through a profound introspective journey of memories, pain, and past experiences.

PETIT PAYSAN (Milky Blood) – Semaine de la Critique, Cannes 2017

Pierre, a thirty-five-year-old dairy farmer, has taken over his parents’farm and devotes twenty-four hours a day to his cows. They are all for him so when an epidemic breaks out, threatening his herd, he gets terribly anxious. Even the assurances of Pascale, his veterinarian sister, that everything is fine, do not soothe his anxieties. And – quite unfortunately – his fears prove founded since one of his animals gets infected. The shock is severe because one cow touched means that his whole herd will be slaughtered. But Pierre is not going to let that happen.

MY GENERATION > with Michael Caine

British film icon Michael Caine narrates and stars in ‘My Generation’, a vivid and inspiring story of his personal journey through 1960s London. Based on personal accounts and stunning archive footage this documentary sees Caine travel back in time to talk to The Beatles, Twiggy, David Bailey, Mary Quant, The Rolling Stones, David Hockney and other star names.
The film has been painstakingly assembled over the last six years by Caine working with producer Simon Fuller, writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and director David Batty. Telling the story of the birth of pop culture in London through the eyes of the young Michael Caine, and using carefully intercut audio of Caine’s conversations with his co-stars blended with unseen archive material to take the viewer back to the heart of the 1960s. 
“For the first time in history the young working class stood up for ourselves and said, we’re here, this is our society and we’re not going away!” (Michael Caine)
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 – Journey Strand.

SYNESTHESIA CAIRO 13 by Maged El Mahedy | in collaboration with AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

Detour Cinema Roma, Via Urbana 107 Roma March 16, Friday 2018 h8.30pm ON THE ROAD Film Festival PREVIEW 2018 Screening and Q&A with director, Maged El Mahedy, known for winning the Best Documentary Award at the Torino Film Festival, Amnesty International take part in the screening event, with the introduction of Laura Renzi, person responsible on […]

THE FIRST SHOT – Q&A with director Yan Cheng

Three young chinese, three distant and diverse existences caught in a same tension: the search for one’s own identity and the sense of “being” in a present of continuous transformation. All of them was born in China after 1989, the end of all the revolutions. On their shoulders lies a contradictory history and the suffering of the continuous transformation, from the fall of the imperial to the modern era, that began from the First Shot, back in 10.10.1911.

FLAY AWAY HOME (Maikäfer flieg) > Official Selection Giffoni Film Festival

Nomination Best Film Cinema Awards KURIER ROMY 2017. Vienna 1945: The powder keg of war and the Russian occupation as seen through the innocent eyes of nine-year-old Christine. She knows as little about peace as children today know about war. Bombed out and penniless, she and her family are put up in a fancy villa on the outskirts of Vienna. They now have a roof over their heads, nothing more. After the German soldiers capitulate, the Russians take over the house. Everybody is scared of the Russians, who are believed to be a capricious lot. Everybody, except Christine.

SYNESTHESIA CAIRO 13 by Maged El Mahedy | in collaboration with AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

June 2013, Maged returned to Cairo – after the January 25, 2011 revolution that led to Mubarak’s fall – to make a documentary about the Sphinx and to relaunch tourism in Egypt. He has faced with another revolt, this time against the democratically elected president Morsi and his government of the Muslim brotherhood.
Maged has been overwhelmed by events and entered into a state of Sinesthesia in which he rediscovered an intimate part of his childhood by revealing fragments of his identity divided between Egypt and Italy