ANDREA SISTI PRODUCTIONS Presents OTELLO'S SECRET IL SEGRETO DI OTELLO a film by FRANCESCO RANIERI MARTINOTTI official screening Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin Culinary Cinema Thursday February 12th l h. 10.00 p.m. l Martin Gropius Bau post-film Q&A with Francesco Ranieri Martinotti, Donovan, Andrea Sisti OTELLO’S SECRET ● TECHNICAL STAFF Directed by Francesco Ranieri Martinotti Written by Silvia Scola Editing Paolo Maselli Production Management Danilo Mattei Musical Arrangment Puccio Pucci Musical Executive Supervisor Gianluca di Furia Sound Mixing and Editing Federico Ricci Live Music Sound Engineer Federico Maria Lolli Camera Operators Marco Scola di Mambro, Nicola Ragone, Giuliano Braga, Federico Sisti, Daniele Scotti, Marco Filacchioni, Mirella Mencio Continuity Supervisor Vittoria Maniglio Graphics Nerina Fernandez Post Production Federico Sisti Colorist Alessandro Andreoli Digital Post production LVR Digital Online Editor Valerio Vittori Titles Valentina Girolami English Adaptation Olive-Ann Tynan International Consultant Rosanna Seregni Produced by Andrea Sisti for Andrea Sisti Productions Production Company Andrea Sisti Productions With the support of Roma Lazio Film Commission Nationality Italy Production Year 2015 Location Rome Running Time 62’ Format Pall 16/9 proress 4 2 2 Sound 5.1 Press office Lionella Bianca Fiorillo Storyfinders Via A. Allegri da Correggio 11 Roma Italy +39.06.88972779 +39.340.7364203 [email protected] [email protected] credits not contractual OTELLO’S SECRET ● SPECIAL GUESTS Donovan folk singer Robert De Niro actor Ennio Fantastichini actor Remo Girone actor Alessandro Haber actor Francesca Schiavo singer Luca Barbarossa singer-songwriter Ettore Scola director and scriptwriter Citto Maselli director and scriptwriter Giuliano Montaldo director Ugo Gregoretti director Giorgio Arlorio scriptwriter Elsa Martinelli actress Nino Russo scriptwriter Salvatore Maira director Adriana Chiesa di Palma producer and sales agent Mauro Berardi producer Felice Laudadio journalist and film critic Mimmola Girosi assistant director Anthony Foutz scriptwriter Jean Gili film critic Francesca Solinas honorary President of Premio Solinas Gabriella Caporicci Otello alla Concordia owner and Otello's daughter Paolo Zaccagnini music critic Luigi Lai & Tenores Su Dillu musicians Luca Sapio singer-songwriter and musician Andrea Sisti singer-songwriter and producer Gigliola Scola writer Matteo Scarpelli musician with unreleased footage of: Mario Monicelli director and scriptwriter Pete Seeger folk singer Furio Scarpelli scriptwriter Armando Trovajoli composer Otello and Nora Caporicci founders of Otello alla Concordia credits not contractual OTELLO’S SECRET ● SYNOPSIS INTRODUCTION Right in the center of Rome, immediately after second World War, Otello’s restaurant became the meeting point of a group of young directors and screenwriters. Among those very tables they would conceive some of the most beautiful pages of "Neo-realism" and "Commedia all'italiana". "Otello's secret" celebrates that particular season of cinema through the personal recollections of the artists who have contributed to Otello's international fame with their own special craft. Actors, directors and writers from the international scene would also visit the restaurant. Brando, Peck, Hepburn, De Niro, Coppola, and the french Trintignant, Carrière, Chabrol, Vadim, Bardot and many more could often be seen eating at Otello's while working in Rome. SYNOPSIS Right in the courtyard of a roman palace, just next to the Spanish Steps, lies an old and unique restaurant. Immediately after WWII, a group of young directors and screenwriters took on the habit of meeting there: their names were Ettore Scola, Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Pierpaolo Pasolini, Citto Maselli, Gillo Pontecorvo, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Furio Scarpelli, Leo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Franco Solinas, Age and many others. As director Citto Maselli recalls in the documentary, the "trattoria" of Nora and Otello soon became their home and office, to the point that cinema producers ended up calling directly on the restaurant's phone line in order to get in contact with them. In those years, Ettore Scola remembers how, among those very tables, they would conceive and write down some of the most beautiful pages of that season of cinema called "Commedia all'italiana. Even nowadays, many of the key players of that season along with the new generation of actors and directors still meet there every Wednesday evening to discuss cinema while dining and playing cards. As told by French critic Jean Gili, also Jean-Claude Carrière, every time he came to Rome, used to eat at Otello's. These and other stories are told by Robert De Niro, Ugo Gregoretti, Adriana Chiesa Di Palma, Giorgio Arlorio, Elsa Martinelli, Giuliano Montaldo and many others. This historical meeting point in Rome, that’s part of Italian's Cinema and culture, flourished immediately after WWII thanks to the wise direction and patronage of a smart and enthusiastic restaurateur. Otello was conscious of the financial difficulties of the upcoming artists and often gave credit to them. A live concert within the restaurant itself was organised in order to celebrate the 100th anniversary from Otello’s birth. The documentary is a combination of interviews, personal recollections and live music performed by artists such as Donovan, Francesca Schiavo, Luca Barbarossa, Andrea Sisti, Matteo Scarpelli, Luigi Lai, Alessandro Haber and Luca Sapio. A heartfelt occasion to round up all the people who had known him and to revive Otello’s tradition. OTELLO’S SECRET ● DIRECTOR’S NOTE Usually we're not really crazy about interviews and voice-over in documentary films. So in “Otello’s Secret” along with screenwriter Silvia Scola, editor Paolo Maselli and producer Andrea Sisti we tried to steer clear of them. The documentary is in fact the result of a truly collective inspiration, as witnesses tell the story of the most culturally active restaurant in Rome while convivially eating pasta, drinking «Frascati» wine and playing cards. Music is the common thread of the documentary with live songs of Donovan, Francesca Schiavo, Luca Barbarossa, Alessandro Haber, Andrea Sisti, Giorgio Arlorio, Luigi Lai and Luca Sapio who have mingled with directors, screenwriters, actors and painters to celebrate the 100th anniversary from Otello’s birth with a live concert within the restaurant itself. We’ve worked together to deliver the exciting and unique atmosphere of Otello and not only a plain string of historic events. Nowadays you can still feel that atmosphere reveberating among the tables, the dining rooms and in the courtyard of a restaurant that has been and is frequented by so many friends and masters of Cinema. We shot the whole film inside of the restaurant except for Luca Sapio’s performance that goes alongside Elsa Martinelli’s moving statement on Mario Monicelli’s life. There’s no use of archive footage except for scenes shot years ago in the restaurant itself, like Pete Seeger singing “The Internationale” to the waiters and a few affectionate customers or some unpublished images of Carlo Di Palma, Tonino Delli Colli, Furio Scarpelli, Jean-Pierre Léaud... A due homage to a place in Rome that’s part of Cinema’s history, and why not, of the restaurant industry. Francesco Ranieri Martinotti OTELLO’S SECRET ● THE DIRECTOR FRANCESCO RANIERI MARTINOTTI Francesco Ranieri Martinotti in 1991 wrote and directed I Tarassachi with Sergio Castellitto. The film illustrates some aspects of the travails of drug addiction. I Tarassachi was selected at Venice Film Festival. In the same year his short film Overdose won the Critics prize at Montreal Film Festival. In 1993 his feature film Abyssinia was selected at The Critics' Week in Cannes and won the Davide di Donatello Award for the Best First Feature film. Abyssinia was also in the official selection at Sundance Film Festival. In 1997 he wrote the screenplay of the successful Italian comedy Cresceranno i Carciofi a Mimongo with Valerio Mastandrea. In 1998 he directed Branchie based on the novel by Niccolò Ammaniti. The film was selected at Venice Film Festival. In 2001 he collaborated on a documentary about the G8 Summit in Genoa where hundreds of anti-globalization protesters were injured in clashes with the police. Martinotti was among the directors involved in the project and he realized Un altro mondo è possibile and Genova per noi. In 2007 he was among the directors involved in the documentary project Lettere dalla Palestina. The film was presented in the official selection at the Berlin Film Festival. in 2009 he published with Steve della Casa Il mestiere del cinema, a long interview with Mario Monicelli. In 2007 Martinotti directed the comedy Ti lascio perché ti amo troppo and in 2008 La seconda volta non si scorda mai. In 2012 he directed the documentary Furio Scarpelli: Il racconto prima di tutto about one of the most important Italian scriptwriters. The documentary was presented at the Torino Film Festival and was nominated at the Nastri d’Argento. Martinotti is one of the founders of the "Venice Days", a collateral section of the Venice Film Festival. He is currently director of the Florence French Film Festival, France Odeon. Martinotti has been member of the EFA Board from 2009 to 2011. OTELLO’S SECRET ● THE SPECIAL GUEST IN BERLIN DONOVAN Donovan was born in the Maryhill area of Glasgow, Scotland on May 10, 1946. He began playing guitar at age 14 and teamed up with his musician friend Gypsy Dave to do a first tour of the United Kingdom a few years later. In 1964 he recorded his first demo, which contained Catch the Wind, a song that would gain greater popularity a year later, when it was released as a single. In 1965, Donovan emerged onto the larger music scene with a series of live performances on the British television series Ready Steady Go! In 1965 he began working with the British producer, Mickie Most. The first Donovan/Most collaboration was Sunshine Superman, one of the earliest overtly psychedelic songs, and one that helped ignite the musical counterculture revolution.