press release nov 06

Marco Ferreri Retrospective 1 – 14 December at Ciné lumière

About the Retrospective

The Italian Cultural Institute and the Institut français, London, in collaboration with Cinecittà Holding are delighted to present a fortnight-long tribute to maverick Italian director . The retrospective features a representative selection of 13 films from all four decades of his filmmaking career, and showcases impressive (and surprising) performances from some of European cinema’s finest , including , , Gérard Dépardieu, , , and . A highlight of the season will be the two screenings of Ferreri’s masterpiece (Blow-Out) on a newly-restored print provided by Cinecittà especially for the occasion. As many of Ferreri’s films received no, or very limited, UK release, this season represents a valuable opportunity for film fans to assess or re-asses the work of one of Italian – and world – cinema’s most singular talents.

L’Ape regina (The Queen Bee) • La Donna scimmia () • Dillinger è morto () • L’Udienza (The Audience) • La Cagna (Love to Eternity) • La Grande Bouffe (Blow-Out) • Touche pas à la femme blanche (Don’t Touch the White Woman!) • La Dernière Femme () • Ciao Maschio () • Chiedo asilo (Pipicacadodo) • Storie di ordinaria follia (Tales of Ordinary Madness) • La Carne (The Flesh) • Diario di un vizio (Diary of a Maniac)

Venue: Ciné lumière at the Institut français, 17 Queensberry Place, London SW7 2DT Tickets: £7, conc. £5; double bills £9, conc. £7 Box Office: 020 7073 1350 www.institut-francais.org.uk/ferreri

Retrospective organised in collaboration with Cinecittà Holding, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale and Istituto Cinematografico dell’Aquila “La Lanterna Magica”.

About Marco Ferreri

“The two most heterodox [Italian] filmmakers of [their] generation were and Marco Ferreri... A fierce moralist and tender misanthrope, Ferreri’s films alternate between realism and metaphor, concentrating on such themes as destruction, negation and death, but they are also, as in La Grande Bouffe, tempered by a vitality and a sense of gallows humour.” (Morando Morandini, Italian film critic)

“The Italian cinema has lost one of its most original artists, one of its most personal auteurs. No-one was more demanding nor more allegorical than [Ferreri] in showing the state of crisis of contemporary man. The , which screened eight of his films and gave three of them prizes, will not forget him.” (Gilles Jacob, Director, Cannes Film Festival)

“Too ecclectic culturally to be given an ideological label, too whimsical in his poetic style to be defined once and for all, Ferreri is among the most solitary and elusive personalities of the entire Italian cinema since Neorealism. But he is also one of the greatest.” (Lino Miccichè, Italian film academic) Marco Ferreri (1928–1997) was one of cinema’s true originals. Though he was the recipient of numerous top prizes, he Calendar has never been fully accepted into the pantheon of great directors. Perhaps his work is just too disturbing. fri 1 dec, 6.30pm Dillinger è morto Ferreri’s directing career began in Spain in 1958 with a series of three films co-scripted with Spanish writer Rafael fri 1 dec, 8.30pm La Grande Bouffe Azcona, but really took off back in , with such offbeat, acidic comedies as L’Ape regina (The Queen Bee, 1963) and La Donna schimmia (The Ape Woman, 1963). Together these films stake out the territory that Ferreri would continue sat 2 dec, 6.30pm Ciao Maschio to explore in his later work – human folly, perversity and male-female relations – and introduce two Ferreri ‘regulars’ sat 2 dec, 8.45pm La Dernière Femme Italian comic Ugo Tognazzi and French actress . sun 3 dec, 5.30pm L’Ape regina After 1969’s bleak satire of contemporary morality Dillinger è morto (Dillinger is Dead) starring Michel Piccoli, sun 3 dec, 7.30pm La Donna scimmia Ferreri’s work turned still more savage and broadened out to consider Feminism (Ciao Maschio, Bye Bye Monkey, 1978), the Catholic Church (L’Udienza, The Audience, 1971) and the Vietnam War (Touche pas à la femme blanche, wed 6 dec, 6.30pm Diario di un vizio Don’t Touch the White Woman!, 1974). The undoubted triumph of this period is 1973’s La Grande Bouffe (Blow-Out), wed 6 dec, 8.30pm La Carne a blackly-humorous tale of four world-weary middle-aged men who decide to gorge themselves to death in one final orgiastic weekend of sex and gourmet food. The film caused a nationwide scandal (not least for its assault on the holy thu 7 dec, 8.45pm L’Udienza of holies – French cuisine), and at its Cannes premiere the director and his stars (Ugo Tognazzi, Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret) had to literally fight their way out of the cinema. fri 8 dec, 6.30pm Storie di ordinaria follia fri 8 dec, 8.30pm Chiedo asilo Entering his fourth decade as director, Ferreri lost none of his desire to provoke and disturb. There was more boozing and sexual excess in Tales of Ordinary Madness, his 1981 adaptation of a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, sat 9 dec, 6.30pm Touche pas à la femme blanche and still more shocks in his 1983 tale of incest, La Storia di Piera (The Story of Piera), starring . A sat 9 dec, 8.30pm Liza notable late-career triumph was 1991’s La Casa del sorriso (), a mischieviously subversive and surprisingly tender film centred on the love affair between two sprightly ‘inmates’ of a repressive retirement home sun 10 dec, 4.15pm Dillinger è morto which won Ferreri the at the Berlin International Film Festival. tue 12 dec, 6.30pm La Dernière Femme Neither Catholic or Marxist like his Italian contemporaries, Ferreri described himself as a ‘comic anarchist’. He believed tue 12 dec, 8.45pm Ciao Maschio that the cinema was a place where society could forget its divisions, and intended his films to appeal to a mass audience, not a small elite of arthouse cinema-goers. Combining surrealist satire, scathing social criticism, savage wed 13 dec, 6.30pm Chiedo asilo sexual politics, not-for-the-squeamish scatology, and an often apocalyptic sensibility, Ferreri created a truly unique wed 13 dec, 8.45pm La Grande Bouffe body of work that continues both to entertain and to challenge audiences’ sensibilities. thu 14 dec, 6.30pm Liza thu 14 dec, 8.30pm Touche pas à la femme blanche Filmography

Los Chicos (1959); (1959); (The Wheelchair; 1960); Le Italiane e l’amore (Latin Lovers, The Films 1961); La Donna scimmia (The Ape Woman, 1963); L’Ape regina (The Queen Bee, 1963); Controsesso (Countersex, 1964); L’Uomo dei cinque palloni (The Break Up, 1965); Oggi, domani, dopodomani (1965); L’Ape regina (The Queen Bee) (The Wedding March, 1965); Corrida! (1966); L’Harem (The Harem, 1967); Il Seme dell’uomo Italy / | 1963 | b&w | 88 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Ugo Tognazzi, | cert. 18 Middle-aged car dealer Alfonso’s new young wife wants a baby. Male-drone to her female queen bee, Alfonso does everything he can to (The Seed of Man, 1969); Dillinger è morto (Dillinger is Dead, 1969); L’Udienza (The Audience, 1971); Liza satisfy his wife, but is quickly worn out by her insatiable sexual appetite. A satirical attack on the institution of marriage in a similar vein to (Love to Eternity, 1972); La Grande Bouffe (Blow-Out, 1973); Touche pas à la femme blanche! (Don’t Touch Divorce – Italian Style, Ferreri’s film caused a scandal in conservative 60s Italy. the White Woman!, 1974); La Dernière Femme (The Last Woman, 1976); Yerma (1978); Ciao Maschio (Bye Bye Monkey, 1978); Chiedo asilo (Pipicacadodo, a.k.a Seeking Asylum, 1979); Storie di ordinaria follia (Tales of La Donna scimmia (The Ape Woman) Ordinary Madness, 1981); Storia di Piera (The Story of Piera, 1983); Il Futuro è donna (The Future is Woman, Italy / France | 1963 | b&w | 92 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Ugo Tognazzi, Annie Girardot | cert. 18 Showman Antonio discovers the unusually hirsute Maria working in the kitchen of a nunnery and persuades her to tour the country 1984); I Love You (1986); La Casa del sorriso (The House of Smiles, 1991); Come sono buoni i bianchi (How with him as ‘The Ape Woman’. Treading similar territory to The Elephant Man, Ferreri’s film is a far more controversial proposition, playing as Good the Whites Are, 1988); Le Banquet (1989); La Carne (The Flesh, 1991); Diario di un vizio (Diary of a a sometimes uncomfortably biting satire that had contemporary critics up in arms. Maniac, 1993); Nitrato d’argento (1997). Dillinger è morto (Dillinger is Dead) Prizes Italy | 1969 | col | 90 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Michel Piccoli, , Annie Girardot | cert. 18 Returning home one evening to find his wife in bed with a headache, Glauco cooks dinner, cleans the .45 hand gun he finds in the kitchen cupboard, makes love to the maid... then shoots his wife dead. An offbeat blend of fantasy and reality, Dillinger was a cult film for Martin FIPRESCI Prize (El Cochecito, 1960 ); FIPRESCI Prize (L’Udienza, 1971 Berlin International Film Scorsese and his ‘movie brat’ contemporaries. Festival); FIPRESCI Prize (La Grande Bouffe, 1973 Cannes Film Festival); Grand Prize of the Jury (Ciao Maschio, 1978 Cannes Film Festival); FIPRESCI Prize (Storie di ordinaria follia, 1981 San Sebastián International Film L’Udienza (The Audience) Festival); Golden Berlin Bear (La Casa del sorriso, 1991 Berlin International Film Festival); Pietro Bianchi Award Italy / France | 1971 | col | 112 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Ugo Tognazzi, , , | cert. 18 (1992 Venice Film Festival). Ferreri takes on Vatican bureaucracy in this Kafkaesque story of one man’s vain attempts to secure a personal audience with the Pope. L’Udienza stars legendary singer-songwriter Enzo Jannacci as the supplicant Amedeo, with the brilliant Vittorio Gassmann, Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Piccoli as the assorted prelates and Vatican bureaucrats blocking his path to the top man. Winner FIPRESCI Prize, 1971 Berlin International Film Festival. Liza (La Cagna, a.k.a Love to Eternity) France / Italy | 1972 | col | 100 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Catherine Deneuve, Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli | cert. 18 Playing like a twisted version of a Howard Hawkes comedy, Liza has Mastroianni as a reclusive cartoonist living with his dog on a remote Mediterranean island. His solitude is interrupted with the arrival of Liza, a beautiful blond who has swum out to the island from a yacht after a row with her rich boyfriend, and the two begin an affair. But Liza is soon jealous of the only other contendor for Giorgio’s affections – his dog – and is driven to murder her ‘rival’ and assume its duties...

La Grande Bouffe (Blow-Out) France / Italy | 1973 | col | 130 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, Ugo Tognazzi | cert. 18 Four world-weary middle-aged men (a pilot, chef, judge and TV personality) decide to gorge themselves to death in one final orgiastic weekend of sex and gourmet food. Described by the Times as ‘vulgar vaudeville on an epic scale... a mordant, chilling, hilarious dirty movie’, Ferreri’s blackly-comic satire of our modern consumer society won the Critics Award at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.

Touche pas à la femme blanche (Don’t touch the white woman!) France / Italy | 1974 | col | 108 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Marcello Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret | cert. 18 Ferreri’s follow-up to La Grande Bouffe was this outlandish, absurdist, spoof , a riotous reenactment of the events leading up to the Battle of Little Big Horn, starring Mastrioanni as a ludicrously vain General Custer and Michel Piccoli as an effeminate . The political satire is both comic and caustic: anachronisms abound ( stands in for the Wild West, Nixon is President) and parallels are drawn between America’s genocidal Indian Wars and its intervention in Vietnam.

La Dernière femme (The Last Woman) France / Italy | 1976 | col | 108 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Gérard Depardieu, , Michel Piccoli, Renato Salvatori | cert. 18 Picking up his young son one night from nursery Gérard meets the beautiful Valérie, and the two start a passionate affair. But the relationship soon falters: Gérard is jealous of the maternal affection Valérie bestows on his son, and she in turn comes to believe that his passion for her is based on sex alone. When Valérie threatens to leave, Gérard is driven to a shocking act of self-mutilation in order to prove her wrong.

Ciao Maschio (Bye Bye Monkey) Italy / France | 1978 | col | 110 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Gérard Depardieu, Marcello Mastroianni | cert. 18 Set in a decaying, rat-infested New York of the future, Ferreri’s film stars Depardieu and Mastroianni as foreign misfits and neighbours who one day stumble across the dead body of a 40-foot ape. Depardieu decides to adopt the young chimpanzee nestled in its arms, and gradually comes to concentrate on the chimp to the exclusion of his girlfriend, work and friends. A richly symbolic film featuring Ferreri’s characteristic blend of humour, the bizarre and the apocalyptic, Ciao Maschio was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival.

Chiedo asilo (Pipicacadodo, a.k.a Seeking Asylum) Italy / France | 1979 | col | 110 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Roberto Benigni | cert. 15 Italian comic Roberto Benigni plays a free-spirited nursery school teacher whose unconventional methods enthrall his young pupils but stir controversy among the more traditionally-minded parents and school administrators. Pivoting on what Ferreri saw as the profound separation between our society of alienated adults and the innocent, richly imaginative world of young children, Chiedo asilo is gentler than any of the directors other credits, but just as resolutely non-conformist.

Storie di ordinaria follia (Tales of Ordinary Madness) Italy / France | 1981 | col | 101 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Ben Gazzara, Ornella Muti | cert. 18 Though not obviously ‘toned down’ in content, this compelling, sometimes explicit journey through LA’s lower depths was apparently Ferreri’s bid for mainstream acceptance. Based on the the autobiographical writings of infamous skid row poet Charles Bukowski, the film stars Cassavetes regular Ben Gazzara as the grizzled, self-destructive poet, and a radiant Ornella Muti as the troubled barfly with whom he becomes involved.

La Carne (The Flesh) Italy | 1991 | col | 90 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with Sergio Castellito, | cert. 18 Twenty years after La Grande Bouffe, Ferreri again caused a fuss at Cannes with this darkly comic look at obsessive love. Paolo and Francesca’s excessive and energetic love-making leaves Paolo physically paralyzed yet in a state of constant physical arousal, a situation whose drawbacks eventually come to outweigh the advantages. Yet when Francesca decides to leave him, Paolo comes to realise just how addicted to her body he has become...

Diario di un vizio (Diary of a Maniac) Italy | 1993 | col | 94 mins | dir. Marco Ferreri, with , Jerry Calà | cert. 18 Benito keeps a diary or his sexual fantasies and cravings, which, thanks to his on-again, off-again relationship with the beautiful and insatiable Luigia (Italian pin-up Sabrina Ferilli), have grow increasingly bizarre. As his sexual fantasies consume more and more of his life, and grow darker and darker, Benito’s ordinary waking life becomes proportionally flatter and duller, until he disappears altogether... One of Ferreri’s final films, this is also one of his most stylish and engaging comedies.

For more information, please contact: Natacha Antolini, T. 020 7073 1365 or [email protected] Giulia Maione, T. 020 7396 4402 or [email protected]