The first 4 Exhibitions of Lucca Film Festival 2015

11th Edition

LUCCA FILM FESTIVAL 2015

presents

David Cronenberg exhibitions

Evolution. Lucca / Fondazione Ragghianti

Trailer: http://youtu.be/Q_tnWs_MT50

M. Butterfly. Lucca / Puccini Museum – Birthplace

Red Cars. Lucca / State Archives (ex-Macelli area)

Trailer: http://youtu.be/3KkhaEi9ByE

Chromosomes. Viareggio / GAMC Galleria Arte Moderna e Contemporanea

Trailer: http://youtu.be/3KkhaEi9ByE

From Sunday, 15 February to Sunday, 3 May 2015

The 11th edition of the Lucca Film Festival (March 15 to March 21) renders homage to one of the great masters of contemporary cinema, David Cronenberg, with a series of events that for three months will enliven the cities of Lucca and Viareggio, Italy. Starting this year, Lucca Film Festival joins forces with Viareggio’s festival Europa Cinema creating an event that is unique in Italy.

Thanks to the crucial support of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, the opening of three international exhibitions on Sunday, 15 February 2015 will mark the official inauguration of the program celebrating Cronenberg’s work and life. The exhibits have been organized by the Comitato Nuovi Eventi in collaboration with Lucca Film Festival and produced by the Toronto Film Festival and by Volumina of Torino, Italy.

The exhibition Evolution, created by the Toronto International Film Festival and premiering in Italy, will be on display in Lucca at the Fondazione Ragghianti, with a special section entitled M. Butterfly hosted within the walls of Puccini’s birthplace, now the Puccini Museum. Evolution showcases over 100 original artifacts from props, costumes, drawings and sketches to never-seen-before photos and footage. It is curated by Piers Handling, director of the Toronto International Film Festival and by Noah Cowan, and the first TIFF Bell Lightbox artistic director. The exhibit Red Cars is curated by Domenico De Gaetano, director of Volumina, and by Alessandro Romanini. This multimedia installation on display at Lucca’s State Archives (ex-Pubblici Macelli) is dedicated to Ferrari and to the car-racing world. It is inspired by the Canadian director’s screenplay and artbook-object published in 2005. The Red Cars film was never made. Finally, the GAMC Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Viareggio will host Chromosomes. The exhibit curated by Domenico De Gaetano and by Alessandro Romanini will highlight 70 frames chosen by Cronenberg himself from his most famous films. Frames that have now become icons of contemporary art.

David Cronenberg will partecipate the Film Festival taking place in the Tuscan city from March 15 to March 21, 2015. The Canadian Director will not be able to attend the Festival physically due to serious personal issues, but he will participate by skype in public talks, conferences and concerts dedicated to the scores from his films. The program has been developed in collaboration with the Toronto International Film Festival and with Volumina.

The Lucca Film Festival directed by Nicola Borrelli is one of the key events organized and sponsored by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca. The exhibits dedicated to Cronenberg are organized in collaboration with the Comitato Nuovi Eventi per Lucca with the support of Banca Pictet and Société Générale.

The Festival also enjoys the support of Banca Generali Private Banking, the Region of Tuscany, the City of Lucca, the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca, with the collaboration of the Province of Lucca, the Fondazione Sistema Toscana, the Fondazione Giacomo Puccini and Puccini Museum – Casa Natale, the Fondazione Centro Arti Visive, CG Entertainment and the Photolux Festival. The event is held under the patronage of MiBACT, the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Activities and Tourism.

Starting with the 2015 edition and for the next three years, the Lucca Film Festival will also organize the festival Europa Cinema in collaboration with the Municipality of Viareggio. This glorious international event was founded in 1984 by Federico Fellini and Felice Laudadio based on a shared program distributed both territories. The joint organization of a single Festival held on the same days will strengthen both events, making the organization more efficient, cutting costs, and ensuring an overall wider cultural reach and media coverage of the Festival.

The undisputed master of contemporary cinema David Cronenberg was born in Toronto in 1943. In the 70s, he directed films like The Brood (1979) and Scanners (1981), which consecrated him as one of the Masters of cinema. From Videodrome (1982) to Dead Ringers (1988), Cronenberg’s films explore the terror man experiences when confronted with the genetic mutation of bodies, the infection of both psychological and physical flesh and the destructive impulses of the mind. After the success of Crash at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996, and of Spider (2002), the Canadian filmmaker faces more challenging productions like A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007). At the same time, he develops a series of extra-cinematographic projects, such as the opera The Fly, based 1986 film, on stage in Paris and Los Angeles in 2008. His latest films, from A Dangerous Method (2011) and Cosmopolis (2012) to Maps to the Stars in 2014 were widely acclaimed by audience and critics.

The Exhibitions

EVOLUTION

Lucca / Fondazione Ragghianti

Lucca Film Festival presents in a national premiere Evolution, the exhibit dedicated to the filmmaking career of the great Canadian artist. Created by the Toronto International Film Festival and curated by TIFF director, Piers Handling and by Noah Cowan, Evolution first opened in Toronto in 2013.

Through Cronenberg’s inventions, the exhibition explores the possible psychological and physical evolutionary paths of Man in a journey from the telepaths of Scanners to The Fly’s scientist, from Videodrome’s television producer to the twin doctors in Dead Ringers. Evolution chronologically traces Cronenberg’s career evolution as a filmmaker through more than a hundred original artifacts from his film sets, props, video interviews, film clips, never seen before movies and rare photographs from behind the scenes. The early influence of Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan is evident in films like Videodrome (1983), Cronenberg’s infatuation for the human body and for technology is unmistakable in eXistenZ (1999) and his growing interest in psychology is undisputable in A History of Violence (2005), in Spider and inCosmopolis.

Evolution also features an exquisite companion catalogue to the exhibition and a deluxe boxed-set that includes the catalogue, a DVD of Cronenberg’s latest short film The Nest and a limited edition print signed by the Canadian filmmaker.

M. BUTTERFLY (detached section of the exhibit Evolution)

Lucca / Puccini Museum – Birthplace

Evolution will feature a special detached section of the exhibit hosted by the Puccini Museum – the Maestro’s Birthplace with a room dedicated to M. Butterfly, the film directed by Cronenberg in 1993 starring Jeremy Irons in a masterful interpretation. Giacomo Puccini’s birthplace is undoubtedly the perfect setting to house the spectacular props and costumes from the movie’s set alongside the memorabilia and precious autographs regarding Madame Butterfly that the museum already showcases. Once again, the parallelisms between the opera’s tragic story and the vicissitudes of the film’s protagonist present themselves thanks to Cronenberg’s talent and to his skillful use of Giacomo Puccini’s music.

RED CARS

Lucca / State Archives (ex-Macelli)

Cronenberg wrote the screenplay Red Cars, immediately after Crash (1996) with the intention of turning it into a movie. Produced by Warner Bros, with Mel Gibson starring as the protagonist, the film was never made. In 2005, the film project was presented as an artist’s book published by Volumina, at the 62^nd Venice Film Festival. In 2008, Red Cars was presented at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome as a multimedia installation.

The volume contains the complete script for the yet-to-be-made movie and narrates the story of the 1961 Formula One Championship rivalry between two pilots, American Phil Hill and German Wolfgang von Trips. Red Cars is actually a tribute to the Ferrari 156 F1, a car that became a legend in racing and that was nicknamed “Sharknose” because of its distinctive shark-shaped nose. A car that both pilots were racing at the time. The book is meticulously designed to represent the body and the engine of a car and contains rare historical photographs taken from the Ferrari archive, portraits of the main players, technical cut away views of the engines, racing circuit tracks and photographs of many details. All packaged following a graphic design based on car magazines of the 60s.

At the State Archive of Lucca, Red Cars will be visible in its multimedia installation form, curated by Domenico de Gaetano, director of Volumina, and by Alessandro Romanini. The history of Hill and Von Trips is told through images, words and video in an atmosphere that evokes abstract painting and pop art. Visitors will be able to purchase the object-book Red Cars, a true work of art along with a Ferrari model that has been exclusively produced for the occasion by Brumm.

CHROMOSOMES

Viareggio / GAMC Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea

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Chromosomes will be hosted in Viareggio at GAMC Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art). Created by Volumina of Torino, this exhibit marked the international debut of David Cronenberg as a “pure artist”. The exhibition, curated here by Domenico de Gaetano and Alessandro Romanini, features 70 still frames chosen by the Canadian director from his most famous films: The Fly, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, Spider and Eastern Promises.

The frames were captured in the laboratories of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (the Experimental Cinema Centre) then digitally processed by Volumina’s team of graphic experts under Cronenberg’s supervision and finally printed on canvas using innovative techniques, bringing the images to a new life beyond the movie screen.

The overall goal is to distance these images as much as possible from their cinematic origin. Some frames are recognizable icons from Cronenberg’s films, images that never cease to amaze us. The exploding head, the mutant arm with a gun, the arcane gynecological instruments, the teleport transmission booth or the hand that is sensuously caressing the body of a car. Other frames, instead, revolve around the Canadian director’s vision that is more personal or around different themes of the exhibition. The relationship between body and technology, between cinema and art, between nature and genetic modifications, between videogames and science. The exhibition is completed by a video installation for two monitors showing the sequences of his most famous films.

The Chromosomes catalogue features comments on Cronenberg’s poetic art written by the main protagonists of the worlds of culture and science. Contributors such as composer Howard Shore, writer William Gibson, geneticist Marcello Buiatti, designer Giorgetto Giuagiaro, curator and art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist, actor Viggo Mortensen along with many others.

Opening Hours & Tickets

EVOLUTION & RED CARS

EVOLUTION Lucca / Fondazione Ragghianti

Via San Micheletto, 3 Lucca- tel. + 39 0583 467205 – info@fondazioneragghianti.it

RED CARS Lucca / State Archives (ex-Macelli)

Via Pubblici Macelli, 155 Lucca

Opening Hours: 10 am to 1 pm and from 2 pm to 7 pm for both exhibitions – closed on Tuesdays

Tickets: ticket for both Evolution & Red Cars: full price € 7,00 – reduced price € 5.00

Tickets also available for purchase on www.luccafilmfestival.it

M. BUTTERFLY

Lucca / Puccini Museum – Birthplace

Corte San Lorenzo, 9 Lucca – tel. +39 0583 584028 – info@puccinimuseum.it

Opening Hours:

Until March 30 from 10 am to 1 pm – Fridays from 10 am to 4 pm – Saturdays and Sundays from 10 am to 6pm – closed on Tuesdays

During the week of the Lucca Film Festival open from 10 am to 6 pm – closed on Tuesdays

Starting April 1 from 10 am to 6 pm – Saturdays and Sundays from 10 am to 7 pm. No closing day

Tickets: € 3.00 with a single ticket to Evolution & Red Cars

CHROMOSOMES

Viareggio / GAMC Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea “L.Viani“

Palazzo delle Muse, Piazza Giuseppe Mazzini Viareggio- tel. +39 0584 581118– gamc@comune.viareggio.lu.it

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday from 3:30 pm to 7:30 pm – closed on Mondays

Tickets: € 4.00 with a single ticket to Evolution & Red Cars

Reduced Tickets – Visitors entitled to discounted tickets: visitors under 18, over 65, groups of 10 or more people, college students, ticket holders to the Puccini Museum, ticket holders to GAMC, holders of a Festival day pass or of a pass for the entire the Festival, visitors arriving by train in Lucca in possession of a Trenitalia travel ticket or a pass purchased during the period of the exhibitions, Trenitalia smart card holders, holders a movie tickets purchased during the period of the exhibitions at the Cinema Centrale, Eden and Goldoni in Viareggio, at the cinema Astra, Moderno and Centrale in Lucca or at the Cinema Lanteri in Pisa, members of Lucca film clubs (Circolo del Cinema and Cineforum Ezechiele).

Free entry – Visitors entitled to free entry: children under 6 years of age, disabled visitors and their accompaniers, journalists exhibiting identification, group guides).