2009 Torino GLBT Film Festival: Filmmaker Ferzan Ozpetek (above, with festival director Giovanni Minerba) presents "the films of his life."
Ozpetek's quotes below are from the festival's press release.
"I couldn't have been happier when Giovanni Minerba made this proposition to me. I wanted to start out with a series of 'Madames,' ranging from the splendid Madame X, by David Lowell Rich, with Lana Turner, to Madame Rosa, [starring] Simone Signoret, and then on to Madame Sousatzka by John Schlesinger, with the intriguing Shirley MacLaine, and finishing off with Madame de… directed by Max Ophüls, in 1953.
"Unfortunately there were problems in getting the films, so the only remaining 'madame' belongs to Ophüls himself, a film which had literally enraptured me [because of] its camera movement! There is another 'mama' that I dearly loved as a child: Auntie Mame by Morton Da Costa [made in] 1958. I was really struck by the way the story was told, through the set designing and the lighting, as well as the feeling of the young boy in relation to his aunt, which really moved me. What the aunt says may come off as superficial, but her words touch the heartstrings.
"I saw Bianca by Nanni Moretti two times in a row; that character really struck me with all that he felt regarding the separation [of] the couple who are his friends: it is an outstanding film by Moretti. Lions Lying in the Sun is definitely another genre, though made by another Italian director I love: Vittorio Caprioli. He is truly great, I also remember his Far from Gay Paris. Seeing The Sign of Venus by Dino Risi on the big screen again means rediscovering a magnificent Franca Valeri; I laughed and cried at her interpretation."
Photo: V. Francesco