The Italian Cultural Institute of Beijing is pleased to announce the “2023 Italian Art & Museum Documentary Festival,” featuring eight documentaries that respectively depict artists and artistic movements, architecture and museum collections, the past and future of Italian art cities.
In order to promote the artistic and cultural exchanges between Italy and China, CGV Cinema and ATW Culture jointly organized the 2023 Italian Art & Museum Documentary Festival supported by the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing for the third time. This edition is the third collaboration between CGV Cinema (Southwest area) and the Consulate General of Italy in Chongqing as well. We hope to continue to allow everyone to enjoy the masterpieces and aesthetic legends of the European art in the cinema.
The films in this screening are all directed by Italian directors and produced and distributed by Italian production companies. There are eight films in total, namely: “Caravaggio: the soul and the blood”, “Tintoretto: a rebel in Venice”, “Venice: Infinitely Avant-Garde”, “Raphael The Young Prodigy”, “Botticelli Florence and the Medici”, “Tutankhamun The Last Exhibition”, “Water Lilies of Monet: The magic of water and light”, “The Prado Museum. A collection of wonders”.
The film festival will be screened simultaneously in three theaters of CGV Cinema Chongqing Raffles City, CGV Cinema Chongqing Yuanzhu, and CGV Cinema Chongqing U City from September 14 to September 24. The opening ceremony of this film festival will be held on September 14th at CGV Cinema Chongqing Raffles City, premiering the film “Caravaggio: Soul and the Blood”.
Caravaggio: The Soul and the Blood
Caravaggio – ‘the Soul and the Blood’ is a moving journey through the life, works and tormented existence of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, one of the most controversial and mysterious figures in the history of art. It is one of the first Italian films to be shot in 8k.
Caravaggio was a revolutionary artist and, as a result, often little loved by his contemporaries. He travelled all over Italy in search of fortune or perhaps in search of himself, escaping from the enemies he invariably made along the way. Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, Malta: 5 cities, 15 museums and 40 of the most famous artworks in the artist’s typical style, filmed in the places they were specifically created for, or in major museums in Italy and the rest of the world where they can be found today.
This Art Film tells the story of Caravaggio’s artworks through in-depth research into documented evidence, placing a particular focus on his life, a life of light and shade, contrast and contradictions, of being a genius and living on the wild side, finding echoes of his personal experiences in his masterpieces.
Tintoretto: A Rebel in Venice
To mark the occasion of the 500th anniversary of his birth, Tintoretto. A Rebel in Venice comes to cinemas in over 60 countries. It opens in Italy on 25 February and rolls out in theatres from Russia in March to the US in September. This new exclusive documentary film by Sky Arts is dedicated to an extraordinary painter, who was both erratic and highly spirited, as well as instinctive and passionate.
Son of a dyer, which earned him the name Tintoretto, or ‘little dyer’ (1519-1594), he was in fact the only great Renaissance painter never to leave Venice, not even during the years of the plague. We will in fact be fully immersed in Renaissance Venice as we visit some of the places that evoke and preserve the memory of the artist, from the State Archives to the Doge’s Palace, from St. Mark’s Square to the Church of San Rocco. We will be guided through the events that occurred in the life of Jacopo Robusti, professionally known as Tintoretto, from the early years of his artistic training up to his death, not to mention the fascinating period during which he set up his workshop, where some of his children also worked, Domenico, who inherited his father’s business, and his beloved Marietta, also a talented painter. The film, created and written by Melania G. Mazzucco, with special guest, director Peter Greenaway, is narrated by the engaging voice of Helena Bonham Carter – twice Academy Award nominee, and will be distributed by Nexo Digital to cinemas in over 60 countries as part of the Art Beats – Great Beauty on Screen project.
Venice: Infinitely Avant-Garde
1600 years after its legendary founding, Venice continues to be unique: for its urban environment, made of stone, earth and water, and because of its legendary history. But, above all, Venice is unique for its identity as a contradictory city combining contrasting DNA blueprints in an amazing paradox: the attraction of decadence and the excitement of being on the cutting edge.
From an original story by Didi Gnocchi, written by Sabina Fedeli, Didi Gnocchi, Valeria Parisi, Arianna Marelli, directed by Michele Mally, this documentary film takes its cue from Venice’s immense heritage to describe all the palaces housing masterpieces and historical objects, the connections to art and culture, the visual links across the ages that compose a portrait of a futuristic city. Just as in Giandomenico Tiepolo’s fresco “Il Mondo Novo” (The New World) at Ca’ Rezzonico, showing 18th Century Venetian society flocking to admire the cosmorama, a sort of “magic lantern”, all crowded together to marvel at and feed off the wonders of the world to come, in a series of perspective pictures and optical illusions.
Bestowing the memory of the city on us is a task that falls to Carlo Cecchi, master of Italian theatre who has studied, met and worked with all the great intellectuals, directors, writers and actors of 20th Century culture. Moving around Venice, besides Cecchi, we see a young, talented Polish pianist, Hania Rani, a musical prodigy on the international, modern classic scene: she is looking for inspiration and influence in order to compose the film’s soundtrack, through the museums, the typical, narrow streets or ‘calli’, and the wonders of Venice in a game of cross-references and an interplay of reflections.
From Magia Ciarla, who died when the painter was only 8 years old, to the female admirers who helped him on the road to success, down to and including the woman who, as legend would have it, would lead him to his death. Figures of women that really existed and some that were also products of his imagination. Raphael, (1483-1520), was able to portray an ideal of celestial beauty. Thanks to contributions from internationally renowned experts, this documentary film will enable us to discover the most significant cities and places in the life and times of one of the Renaissance masters.
The documentary also makes use of special graphic animation by award-winning illustrator Giordano Poloni that, by using evocative and dreamlike language, gives shape to the key moments in Raphael’s life where myth, legend and reality continuously intermingle.
Botticelli Florence and the Medici
Beauty, creativity, genius: the Renaissance Florence of Lorenzo de’ Medici, known as the Magnificent, was a powerhouse of art and culture coexisting with a darkside. Made up of power struggles, intrigues and brutal violence. One artist, more than any other, was able to project into his works, the lights and shadows of an era destined never to be forgotten: Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510). From the outset of his career under the wing of the Medici family, Botticelli asserted himself as the inventor of an ideal Beauty, which found its maximum expression in works such as The Allegory of Spring and the Birth of Venus.
Tutankhamun: The Last Exhibition
To mark the centenary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb . Tutankhamun. The Last Exhibition offers spectators, for the first time ever, an extraordinary opportunity to meet the Pharaoh, and relive those unique moments on the big screen following exclusive coverage of how 150 items from among his treasures, were moved to become part of the biggest international exhibition ever dedicated to the Golden Boy. ”Please watch them, before they return back to Egypt forever,” said Mostafa Waziry, secretary general of the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities. Much will be revealed through high-resolution photographs by Sandro Vannini, one of the most prolific photographers of Tutankhamun’s treasures, which consist of over 5400 objects.
Water Lilies of Monet : The magic of water and light
A journey through the masterpieces and obsessions of the Genius of the Impressionism. With the invaluable contribution of Ross King, author of the best seller Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies. From Giverny, Musée D’Orsay, Orangerie and Marmottan.
When former French Prime Minister George Clemenceau went to Giverny, he found several canvases stacked in the cellar of the rich house in which he was a guest. Many of them are of exotic flowers, presented for the first time at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris. The garden, the pond and the canvases that made that house unique are works of art by the father of Impressionism himself: Claude Monet. And those flowers with the fleshy petals, floating on the surface of the water and extending their roots down into the marshy waters, are nénuphar, but for Monet they will, always and only, be Nymphéas, Water Lilies.
The Prado Museum: A Collection of Wonders
On the occasion of the official 200th anniversary celebrations, this documentary is the first cinematic journey through the rooms, stories and emotions of one of the most visited museums in the world.
Taking the leading role in THE PRADO MUSEUM. A COLLECTION OF WONDERS areits art masterpieces and the great artists who made them, the crowned heads who collected them, but also the European and libertarian inspiration behind a museum and its wealth of art treasures and stories. This is the common thread that runs through the new documentary film created by Didi Gnocchi, written by Sabina Fedeli and Valeria Parisi and directed by Valeria Parisi. Oscar winning actor Jeremy Irons will be guiding spectators on a discovery of a heritage of beauty and art.