Documento senza titolo

Berbablu’ is the third feature film in a production project of four, all set in the Italian region of Romagna in the 20th century. The films, each complete in itself, are linked by subtle elements to form a tetralogy which, though centred on the stories of a small social group, naturally aims to address an international audience.
The production plan was devised in 1995 by, among others, filmmakers Massimiliano Valli and Luisa Pretolani. Financial support came from a local bank and private investors, and a vital contribution was made by movie industry professionals, actors and local institutions. The whole is coordinated by the cultural association VACA which also handles management and promotion. Ten years are envisaged for completion of the project with a positive financial outcome. Luisa Pretolani and Massimiliano Valli have been nominated to direct the movies and promote them on the international market.
Tanabess (1997) and Tizca (2000), the first two feature films of this ambitious project, have been distributed on the art-house circuit and appreciated by specialised national and international film critics, thus fulfilling their intended purpose.
With its epic storyline, the quality of the acting, a very uncommon and fascinating set of locations and an original soundtrack, Berbablu’ is aimed at a wide audience.
The shooting schedule, begun in summer 2002, is following the rhythm of the seasons and will end in summer 2003.
Outstanding members of the cast are, as Norma, Elena Bucci – the sensitive lead in Tizca – and Ivano Marescotti, surely the best known and most representative actor from Romagna, in the role of Arfur. Berbablu’ is played by Umberto Giovannini who acted in the two previous feature films. The supporting cast will consist of professional actors, faces from the streets and hundreds of extras. This black and white movie will be around two hours long.

ARTISTIC REPORT

“Roman and Celtic blood,” says the professor in Fellini’s “Amarcord”, referring to the people of Romagna. Many of the well known and less well known people who were born or have lived in this strip of land between the Apennines and the Adriatic are sanguine, anarchic, picaresque. Berbablù is a musician, instinctive and passionate in spite of widespread poverty and human cruelties. He embodies the desire for escape which he lives through his music, at parties, in political struggle, at the inn and, above all, in the great love passions that distinguish a man in early century Romagna. A world often visited, documented and dissected by literati, poets, directors: Pascoli, Panzini, Serra, Beltramelli, Moretti, Spallicci, Fellini and many others down to Dino Campana, in a crescendo that is now poetic, now realistic, now essayistic and documentary, and finally oneiric. Yet there is still a lot to be said, as always happens when the observer enters into a microcosm and explores the doings of individuals and the interweaving thereof, until coming to the greater story, the one we all know because we have all gone through it.
The story of Berbablù, of his musical and human vicissitudes, wants to be told for its peculiarities, for the point of view of the direction which relies on an uninhibited and non-hagiographic exploration of the rural and petty bourgeois world in the dramatic juncture 1914/1915. The desire to live (rites, parties, games), amorous passion and the bonds of friendship are set in relation to the toughness dictated by economic poverty, in a social context which was also rapidly changing and which first the war and then fascism were inevitably to freeze.
Berbablù continues the poetic quest that led us to make our first full length film, Tanabèss, which aimed to portray, by focusing on the main character while he carries out the break with his social and cultural formation in Romagna, the general crisis of values that shook the young generations of the 60’s and 70’s.
The screenplay of Berbablù came into being from a crucible of fascination: stories of a history handed down through the oral tradition. As stated by the Solinas Prize jury, who awarded it a grant, Berbablù would be a difficult enterprise but is rich in interest and fascination. A fascination we want to transmit to the public with a film that is powerful in feeling but faithful to the memories which inspired it; agile though moving through a complex plot, tender and believable though dealing with individual and collective tragedies.