MONTHLY GUIDE December 2014 | ISSUE 65 | EASTERN
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MONTHLY GUIDE DECEMBER 2014 | ISSUE 65 | EASTERN “Viva Italia” Cinema Cycle A Dinner for Them Puccini and the Girl to Meet And: • Three Times Manon The Roses of the Desert • Clean Bandit • David Guetta EUROCHANNEL GUIDE | DECEMBER 2014 | 1 2 | EUROCHANNEL GUIDE | DECEMBER 2014 | MONTHLY GUIDE| decemBER 2014 | ISSUE 65 “Viva Italia” Viva Italia It is the end of a year, and Eurochannel presents to you the greatest European entertainment, encompassing almost all genres, telling diverse tales, from prominent architects to revolutions, and showing you both Europe’s established and new music artists. This December, in the spirit of happiness, reflection and joy, we have hand-picked a true gift-wrapped selection of films and music artists, guaranteeing the welcome of the Christmas season. Three Times Manon Celebrate life the Italian way with our “Viva Italia” Cinema Cycle! This month you will be moved by an unknown story of Giacomo Puccini through an innovative silent film that reminds us of the Academy Award-winner, The Artist. Puccini and the Girl delivers a surprising revelation about his methods of composing operas as well as how he reacted to sorrow and love. Also in this cycle, laugh out loud with a mischievous actor as his daughters try to find him a suitable girlfriend inA Dinner for Them to Meet, a film showcasing Italian cinema icons such as Francesca Neri. David Guetta To match the spirit of reflection of the season, we premiere a French miniseries with an A-list cast including lba Gaia Bellugi, known worldwide for her role in the César Awards-winner Intouchables. Three Times Manon Table of follows the life of a conflictive adolescent and invites us to think about how contents to tackle violence without aggression. 4 “Viva Italia” Cinema Cycle For those who love British culture, we have something in store as well. 12 A documentary will reveal the familial life of the legend of cinema John Highlights Boorman, and a drama will take you into the streets of London and Belfast 24 Week 1 to meet five Irish dreamers. 26 Week 2 On Eurochannel, 2014 finishes with la crème de la crème of Europe’s 28 Week 3 musical artists. For the first time, Clean Bandit is on our screen, proving 30 Week 4 why everybody is talking about its fusion of electronica and classical music. Likewise, we present specials with Enrique Iglesias, Coldplay and David Guetta. Music for every taste! EUROCHANNEL GUIDE PUBLISHED BY Eurochannel, Inc. EDITOR IN CHIEF Sofía Martinez EXECUTIVE EDITOR Javier Pardo ARTWORK Cristina Tejada EDITORS Anna Oboza, Javier Pardo, Elda Veiga , Zheljko Kojchic & Paul Jaulin. EUROCHANNEL, INC. 235 Lincoln Road # 201 | Miami Beach, FL 33139 Gustavo Vainstein +1-(305)-531-1315 | www.eurochannel.com Eurochannel’s CEO ©2014 | All pictures rights are reserved. “Viva Italia” Puccini and the Girl Italy The hidden sexual life of the famous Italian composer DIRECTOR Paolo Benvenuti, Paola Baroni CAST Riccardo Moretti, Tania Squillario, Giovanna Daddi GENRE Drama, Romance Premiere: December 5th at 9:00 PM ORIGINAL TITLE Puccini e la fanciulla YEAR 2008 While Puccini is totally engrossed with the composition of his opera La fanciulla del West, sexual intrigue swirls around him. Romance, envy, jealousy and death are the protagonists of this intense silent drama. Puccini’s works are famous worldwide. From Madama shocking scandals about his sexual life. Conceived as an Butterfly to La Bohème, his music earned him the status of experimental film, Puccini and the Girl is the result of greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi, according tireless effort and exhaustive research, not only by the to the critics. But there was more than music and fame in directors but with the help of students from Intolerance, his life, and scandals abounded. Eurochannel invites you the film school in Viareggio, Tuscany. While developing to discover one of his darkest secrets in an innovative the screenplay, Benvenuti found an amusing surprise: artistic drama:Puccini and the Girl. an unidentified granddaughter who kept a suitcase with unseen footage of the composer playing the piano! Directed by Paolo Benvenuti and Paola Baroni, Puccini and the Girl is a unique drama portraying the period when Rare and magnificent, provoking and sophisticated, Puccini composed La fanciulla del West. In the movie — Puccini and the Girl is a movie whose musical construction which originally develops as a silent film with voice-overs builds a labyrinth of ambiguities and secrets through reading the letters that the protagonists write to each superb images, revealing the controversial demise of the other — it is clear that Giacomo Puccini had a penchant composer’s youngest maid and a hidden love affair. for women while composing his operas, which led to 4 | EUROCHANNEL GUIDE | DECEMBER 2014 | “Viva Italia” Interview with Riccardo Moretti Croatia (Actor) How did you get into the role of Puccini? Actually, at first, Paolo Benvenuti had asked me to collaborate in this film as I’m an expert of Giacomo Puccini’s music and life. Funnily enough, during several meetings he realized that I had all the Italy features he wanted from his ideal protagonist. Was there any special preparation for this role? The work was long and hard, and focused mainly on removing certain stereotypes that musicians have when they find themselves as performers: very often they use excessive facial expressions when they play. Instead, Paolo Benvenuti imposed on me a rigorous and inflexible method to make sure that every expressive aspect was born only from the interior of the actor, myself in this case. Premiere: December 5th at 9:00 PM Did you know the story behind the death of Doria beforehand or was it a surprise for you when you got the script? I was already aware of how Doria had died, but the general opinion was formed through pseudo-historical information. The discovery of the truth for me was just a confirmation. How was the experience of acting in a silent film in an era of great visual and sound effects? It was different. Obviously, it was the aesthetic that the director Paolo Benvenuti wanted to give to his film. He wanted the purest intensity and drama for the story. Are you working on any film projects at the moment? Can you tell us something about them? I returned fully to my main work as a film-score composer. In the meantime, I have made a lot of other cinematographic experiences; as film composer I attended the Venice Film Festival for Comedy by Amos Poe and Poltrone Rosse by Francesco Barilli. As an actor I put through the experience of Puccini and the Girl in the theatre with a tour called “The Puccini Experience,” which summarizes the work in Benvenuti’s film; it earned me the «BRAVO AWARD» at Carnegie Hall in New York. EUROCHANNEL GUIDE | DECEMBER 2014 | 5 “Viva Italia” Giacomo Puccini: The man behind La Bohème He is considered the greatest Italian composer after Giuseppe Verdi. Born in Lucca, in Tuscany, in 1858, Giacomo Puccini is the mastermind behind some of the greatest pieces in the story of opera. Among his works one can find renowned compositions like La Bohème and Madama Butterfly. Giacomo Puccini was the last heir of a family that for two centuries had provided the musical directors of the Cathedral of San Martino in Lucca. Facing tragedy very early age, he was orphaned at the age of five by the death of his father; the composer used his sorrow as a source for his compositions. The municipality of Lucca supported the family with a small pension and kept the position of cathedral organist open for Giacomo until he came of age,; until then, he participated in the musical life of San Martino’s Cathedral as a member of the boys’ choir and later as a substitute organist. After studying at the seminary of San Michele in Lucca, he got a diploma from the Pacini School of Music in Lucca in 1880, and then continued his studies at the Milan Conservatory for three years. In 1880, aged 21, Puccini composed his Mass, which resulted in the culmination of his family’s association with church music. In his first stage as composer, he started to build a name while still in the conservatory, where he wrote an orchestral piece called the Capriccio sinfonica as a thesis. The work impressed his teachers, who encouraged him to compose operas. Le Villi was the first of many, and was performed at La Scala in Milan in 1885. Due to the success of Le Villi, Puccini was commissioned to compose another opera. This time he called it Edgar, a three-act work with influences of Wagner’s Tannhäuser. Manon Lescaut followed, being the first of his operas for which he also wrote a libretto, as he wanted nobody to spoil his music. However, along the way the composer changed his mind and allowed five of his closest collaborators to help him. The greatest operas of Giacomo Puccini were written during the middle of his career, when he composedLa Bohème, a four- act opera based on the 1851 book by Henri Murger, La Vie de Bohème; Tosca, arguably Puccini’s first foray into “verismo,” the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence; and Madama Butterfly, based in part on the short story Madame Butterfly by John Luther Long, which premiered at La Scala on February 17, 1904. After 1891, Puccini passed more time at his villa in Torre del Lago, in the Tuscan countryside. The region remained his home and workplace during the last years of his life. However, the composer died in Brussels on November 29, 1924, from complications after a new and experimental radiation therapy treatment in that city.