10 Jul 2018

Nysferatu – Symphony of a Century

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Where and when

10July 2018

Orario

21:15

Museo Novecento

Free admission subject to availability

Animated film lasting 65 minutes, conceived and created by Andrea Mastrovito, with over 30,000 drawings produced together with 12 of the best students of the G. Carrara Academy of Fine Arts in Bergamo and of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts – is a project that blends art, cinema, literature, the practice of drawing and the science of film editing, socio-political gaze and poetic-philosophical imagery. The inspiration comes from Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s film Nosferatu, a masterpiece of expressionist cinema, released in 1922 and in turn modeled on Bram Stoker’s literary Dracula.

Produced by More Art (New York non-profit promoting public art and educational programs inspired by social justice, already engaged with the likes of Andres Serrano, Ernesto Pujol, Tony Oursler, Joan Jonas) and supported, among others, from a fruitful crowdfunding operation, the film debuted in New York in August 2017, hosted in various locations, from the Queens Museum to Central Park, from Magazzino Italian Art to the Cantor Film Center.
Then, in November, participation in the Rome Film Festival as a “special event” and in 2018 new stages: the Grütli Theater in Geneva in January, the Kunsthalle in Osnabrück in February, in April the Stelline Foundation in Milan, in June the Cinema Nuovo Eden in Brescia and Belvedere 21 in Vienna, detachment for modern and contemporary art of the famous Belvedere Castle.
Summer tour through three institutional stages in Italy by Lorenzo Giusti, Helga Marsala, Sergio Risaliti

THE NETWORK. THREE STAGES ALONG THE PENINSULA
In July, Mastrovito’s work will be presented through a review of three events, spread throughout the country and built thanks to the close collaboration between three institutions: the GAMeC – Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bergamo; the Museo Novecento in Florence; the Department of Cultural Heritage and Sicilian Identity, with the Palermo Regional Center for Archaeological Parks and Museums / Salinas Museum.
The first stage of the tour will be held on Monday 9 July in Bergamo, at the GAMeC, with an introduction by the Director Lorenzo Giusti; screenings will follow in Florence, at the Museo Novecento, on Tuesday 10 July, with a talk conducted by the Director Sergio Risaliti, and in Palermo, on Thursday 12 July, by Helga Marsala, at the suggestive monumental archaeological park of Castello a Mare, the fortification of Aragonese age with Arab-Norman origins.
A small network that unites, in different territories, economic, organizational and communication efforts, pursuing common objectives: from supporting the best Italian talents to the production of useful content for the debate on the contemporary, passing through the enhancement of places, works, heritages.

SOUNDS, IMAGES, WORDS
The projections of Bergamo and Palermo are proposed in the extraordinary version conceived for the Rome Film Festival: a soundtrack with scores for piano and voice, performed live, to accompany the soundtrack of the film.
At the piano Simone Giuliani (Florence, 1973; lives in Los Angeles), musician, composer, producer and conductor, author of the original pieces; to the microphones Bisan Toron (born in Syria in 1974, lives between Paris, New York and Richmond), experimental vocalist, composer and singing teacher.
The images, in the night, will come to life together with the sounds, in an engaging and multilevel show, which combines art, cinema, theater and performance. In Palermo, immediately after the live, the screening will be repeated – without musical performance – with free admission while seats last.

All the appointments foresee the presence of Andrea Mastrovito for a short presentation or a final debate on the themes, the creative processes and the symbols of the film.
A volume, created in synergy by the three museums, will collect critical texts, drawings and photographic documentation of projections and concerts.

THE FILM
Animated and almost faithful transcription of the legendary Murnau film, NYsferatu operates an extraordinary detournement in terms of settings and script. Count Orlok (aka Dracula) is catapulted into modern-day New York, with the various characters that trace the movements, expressions, gestures and costumes of the original story. Everything, however, moves to contemporary America, while backgrounds, scenes, architecture and captions of today and yesterday fit together. What emerges is a dark, controversial New York, both victim and executioner, in which the saga of the most famous vampire in history becomes an opportunity to inaugurate multiple metaphorical readings. NYsferatu is a film about the complex plot of our atavistic fears, which meet those that blossomed in the heart of the third millennium: Donald Trump’s America, new racisms, unstoppable migratory flows, the specter of control, the shadow of terrorism, threat to the safety of citizens, the nationalist winds and – on the other hand – the hopes of a new horizon, beyond the chaos of the horror-tinged night.

www.nysferatu.org

If on the one hand the shadow of Count Orlok that stretches through the streets of Manhattan – says Mastrovitorecalls the terrorist threat that this city knows all too well, on the other the vampire himself who wanders lost with his coffin in the desolate metropolis, at night, looking for a home and then finding the right place for him only on Ellis Island, represents a metaphor for immigration and escape for the hope of a better life”.

ANDREA MASTROVITO

Born in 1978 in Bergamo, Mastrovito has lived in New York for years. In 2007 he won the New York Prize, awarded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in 2012 the Moroso Prize. He has made personal exhibitions in private galleries in Milan, Florence, Paris, Geneva, Brussels, New York and in museums and international centers for contemporary arts in Milan, Bergamo, Fort Lauderdale, Toulouse, Rome, Florence, Montélimar, Lacoux. In 2011 he was the first artist to have a solo show at the Museo del Novecento in Milan. His works have been included in many public exhibitions, throughout Europe and the United States. He has held public lectures at the G. Carrara Academy of Fine Arts in Bergamo, Naba, the Brera Academy, the Pecci Museum and the Oberdan Space in Milan, the Palazzo Forti in Verona, the American Academy in Rome, the Nitsch Museum in Naples, the Pavillon Blanc in Colomiers, Broward College in Fort Lauderdale, ISCP and Italian Academy at Columbia University in New York. He has received commissions for many public installations and his works have been acquired by numerous public and private collections in Italy, Europe and the United States.
www.andreamastrovito.com

BISAN TORON

Bisan Toron is a vocalist, composer and singing teacher of experimental music. Born in Syria and raised in Paris and New York, she studied classical acting at NYU and earned her Masters in Ethnomusicology from the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies. He conducted further studies on voice and improvisation with Roy Hart’s company, the Pantheatre, in France.
As an ethnomusicologist she focused on the theme of music and identity, and on the condition of those who “look for a home” through music, in particular among refugee and displaced populations. His field projects include research and documentation of ethnic minority fusion music in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and second and third generation Franco-Arab music. Toron also co-designed and conducted workshops on sound and conflict resolution movement in Haifa, Israel, and Ramallah, Palestine. His compositions and improvisations are permeated by a multitude of vocal cultures and traditions. From 2008 to 2010 she was a lecturer at ESADIB, National College of Dramatic Arts in Mallorca, Spain. He currently performs and teaches throughout Europe and the United States. Lives in Richmond.
www.bisantoron.com

SIMONE GIULIANI

Simone Giuliani was born in Florence. In the early 90s he worked with the Italian punk-rock group Diaframma as a keyboard player, touring and recording four albums with them. A few years later he moved to the United States, where he launched the independent record label Emunity Records. He collaborated, among others, with Cibo Matto for their album Hotel Valentine released on the Sean Lennon Chimera Music label, with Gorillaz for the soundtrack of the film Color Me Love, with Grammy-winning producer Robert Sadin (Sting , Herbie Hancock) and with avant-garde cellist Charles Curtis. Giuliani worked on several remixes for Beyoncé, Maxwell and Sia Furler. He produced Monday Michiru’s album Brasilified, which hosts a remake of Marco Valle Parabéns’ hit and Herbie Hancock’s Tell Me a Bedtime Story. He also wrote the arrangements for Ni Antes… Ni Después, the album by pop / R&B artist Aneeka, nominated Best New Artist at the 2014 Latin Grammy Awards and New Artist of the Year at the 2015 Lo Nuestro Awards. He collaborated with producer Jason Olaine in some rare live recordings by Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, distributed by Concord Music Group and Monterey Jazz Festival Records. In the field of advertising he wrote the original music for some Volkswagen and Sony Music campaigns.
www.simonegiuliani.com

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