CENTRE INTERNATIONAL DE LIAISON DES ECOLES DE CINÉMA ET DE TÉLÉVISION THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FILM AND TELEVISION SCHOOLS CILECT NEWS June 2006 Issue No 44 Page 2 June 2006 CILECT News No 44 Contents Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, 70 years 3 international filmschool cologne 6 L’Ecole des Médias de l’Université du Québéc 8 Student Academy Awards 9 Universidad del Cine, 15 years 10 Training the Trainers 11 New Technologies Update 12 Our Heritage, GEECT Conference 14 FAMU at its Origins 15 En Transito, CILECT Project 18 CILECT Congress 15-22 October 06 ECAM, Madrid CILECT NEWS No 44 June 2006 Page 3 Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografi a 70 years of vital contribution to the Italian Cinema The beginnings the magazine enjoyed rather wide- he founding of a spread popularity. National School of On 13th April 1935, the new Centro Cinema was first Sperimentale di Cinematografia made From 1938 on, the CSC began to proposed by the di- its temporary home in the basement of work on professional full-length films, rector Alessandro a middle school. such as L’ultima nemica by Barbaro and La peccatrice by Palermi, shot in- Blasetti in 1930 and, Building of the school on Via side the Centre. the same year, Anton Tuscolana (where it still is located to- Giulio Bragaglia gave a report to The day) began in 1937 with funds diverted In 1942 it produced Chiarini’s Via T delle cinque lune with a crew of teach- Performing Arts Guild on the founda- from the safes of the Venice Casino. The tion of such an institution: the idea new building was specifically designed ers, students and alumni. In the final was that of a polytechnic dedicated to to serve the needs of teaching; it was an years of the war, however, it was forced teaching the various cinematic skills. incredibly well-equipped architectural to close and was stripped of its equip- Initially, only that part of the project gem, and echoes of the project were ment by the Wehrmacht; the Film concerned with acting was realised, heard internationally. Luigi Chiarini Archives suffered particularly badly as a branch of the Conservatory of held that cinema must hold up a mirror and its materials were lost forever. Santa Cecilia directed by Blasetti and to the national physiognomy and to the In that decade the CSC was the ful- under the control of the Ministry of common man and woman, in bold con- crum for the shaping of writers who Education and the Ministry of Guilds. trast with the “middle European” inter- would be the protagonists of the new The teaching took a naturalistic ap- nationalism of the “light comedies” of era of Italian cinema: Michelangelo proach: students were brought into the period. Antonioni; Giuseppe De Santis, Gianni contact with cases of the extremes of He was also concerned with the tran- Puccini, Steno, Luigi Zampa. Also of human experience (for example insane sition from a cinema of propaganda to actors like Gianni Agus, Paolo Carlini, asylums and hospitals) in order to teach a political and educational cinema. He Andrea Checchi, Arnoldo Foil Massimo them a strictly realistic style of acting. was joined in this struggle by Umberto Serato; ‘divas’ like Clara Calamai, Carla In 1934, Galeazzo Ciano established Barbaro, the critic, writer, scriptwrit- Del Poggio, lrasema Dilian, Mariella a new governmental office grouping er and translator of Eisenstein, and Lotti and Alida Valli; world-famous disciplines which had previously been Balazs. set and costume designers and costum- ers like Mario Chiari, Vittorio Nino divided between several ministries and The courses began on 1st October, Novarese, Gianni Polidori and Maria placing them under the direct control 1935, and were divided into five disci- De Matteis (who in the years to come of the regime. plines: acting, optics, sound, stagecraft would break through in Hollywood); Luigi Freddi, who considered the and production. Some classes, such as and above all, directors of photography training of new students the priority, aesthetics and cinema history, social like Pasqualino De Santis and Gianni was placed at the helm of this structure function of the cinema and history of Di Venanzo. There were also anoma- and, dissatisfied with the School, creat- art, were common to all courses. The lies such as Pietro Germi, who gradu- ed in its place the Centro Sperimentale course lasted two years with an option- ated in acting but would also become di Cinematografia, putting Luigi al third year on request. famous as a director, and Leopoldo Chiarini in charge. Freddi dealt with The CSC contained a library and a administration and relations with the Trieste, who graduated in direction but Film Archives which was numbered went on to act in films by Fellini and state while Chiarini laid out the struc- among the largest in the world for the ture of the courses after a careful study Germi; Dino De Laurentiis, who had richness of its materials. Another cor- studied acting, went on to become one of the rare institutes already working in nerstone of the centre’s activity was the same field abroad. The aim was that of the most important producers in the Bianco e Nero, a journal of cinema his- world. of linking filmmaking to a wide ranging tory and criticism of a kind previously It is noteworthy that, during the cultural education. The first National unknown. New directions were studied years of fascism, the CSC was home to School of Cinema was thus dissolved. in terms of an increasingly demanding the development of a critical conscience public, and despite its scientific style, which was antagonistic towards the re- Page 4 June 2006 CILECT News No 44 gime, and was a rare home to intellec- January 20th, 1947 was the inauguration the founding fathers of CILECT and tual debate and liberal culture. of the first biennium with, among oth- equipped itself with television equip- In addition to those already men- ers, Michelangelo Antonioni and the ment, becoming one of the first schools tioned, the teaching staff of this first, director of photography Carlo Nebiolo in the world to display an interest in the fundamental, period included Rudolf teaching, and Visconti, De Sica, Germi, new media. Arnheim (who later moved to America), Soldati and Lattuada giving seminars. In these years, the CSC became a the art historian Giuliano Briganti, the In 1949, a law that established the fundamental reference point, not only director and writer Corrado Pavolini, Cineteca Nazionale was passed (for for Italian cinema but for cinema from etc. the first time in a Western country), the all over the world, attracting many as- legal deposit requirement to prints all piring film makers from countries with Italian films. small film schools or entirely without The Post War Period In the fifties the CSC became active them. For around twenty years from the in the fields of research and publishing These foreign students, mainly end of the war, the conflict between as in training and in the preservation Latin-American, but also African Arab, marxists and catholics determined of the national film heritage. It pub- Greek, Slav and from the Far East, stud- continuing shifts in the direction of lished the Filmlexicon degli autori e ied at the CSC and then returned home the CSC. At its reopening in 1946, delle opere, an international biographi- where, in addition to carrying out their Umberto Barbaro was made director cal film dictionary, which was the first professions, they also contributed to the of both the CSC and Bianco e Nero. of its type in the world. It was one of CILECT NEWS No 44 June 2006 Page 5 subsequently by the producer Alfredo creation of new training institutes struc- Bini and the university professors Orio tured along the lines of the CSC. One Caldiron and Lino Miccichè, the latter of them was Gabriel García Marquez responsible for a great deal of publish- who, along with Fernando Birri, found- ing during his presidency. ed the Escuela Internacional de Cine y The CSC also took a position on the Televisión in Cuba. European and international stages with Caterina d’Amico who was president The Rossellini Period of the European Grouping of Film In the pivotal year of 1968, Roberto schools (GEECT) for eight years and Rossellini was named Commissario has been president of CILECT since straordinario (general delegate) of the 2000. CSC and took his position with the In 2002 a new Board of Directors was idea of initiating interdisciplinary re- appointed which included some of the search on the collective means of mass most illustrious names in culture and communication, with an eye on televi- film. Its president is Francesco Alberoni, sion. He also proposed the radical re- a world-famous sociologist. His advisers thinking of the traditional syllabus: in are the set designer Dante Ferretti, wo addition to the technical courses, there worked on some of Martin Scorsese’s would also be academic courses in psy- most famous films, among which The chology, economics and sociology, and Aviator for which he was awarded an a new approach which no longer par- Academy Award; Giancarlo Giannini, celled up individual cinema skills but one of the most famous actors in Italian aimed at the education of the total film cinema who has worked with Visconti, maker. He promoted the self-manage- Scola, Wertmüller, Coppola and Scott ment of the syllabus by the students to name a few; Carlo Rambaldi (three and eliminated the acting course. The time Oscar winner), father of the cel- student movement and the intellectual ebrated creatures King Kong, Alien and disputes which raged between 1968 and E.T.; and Gavino Sanna, world famous 1972 caused crises in many cinemato- master of advertising communication.