Tribute to the first festival of cinéma d’auteur in the film history
After the tribute to François Truffaut in 2004, the tenth edition of Milano Film Festival unearths another milestone of the film history – an achievement resulting from an artistic research that has always distinguished itself, even when aimed at discovering the glorious past of filmmaking. Last year, Le cercle cinémane was recreated, the film season organized by Truffaut in 1948, by a sixteen-year-old film lover in search of his first favourite films. This year, the curators’ attention has been focused again to the cinéphile origin of different Nouvelle Vague directors, and again to France, to 1949, one year after Truffaut’s experience.
The tribute – that has been realized in collaboration with Fondazione Cineteca Italiana – Spazio Oberdan – aims to feature the original programme of the Festival du Film Maudit, which run in 1949 in Biarritz, directed by Jean Cocteau, and draw the attention and passion of Truffaut, Bazin, Rivette, Chabrol – filmmakers that soon became revolutionary figures in the film history, not only in France.

Sun 18, 9pm
Spazio Oberdan

Guernica
France 1949 12 min Director: Alain Resnais
Production: Pierre Braunberger
Screenplay: ispirato alle opere di Paul Eluard e Pablo Ricasso
Editing: Alain Resnais
Cinematography: Henry Ferrand
Music: Guy Bernard
This small but powerful film opens with a photograph of the destroyed town of Guernica, bombed without warning by the german aviation on April 26 1937, and uses fragments of Picasso's epic painting, together with other works by the artist and a passionate poetic text by Paul Eluard, to create a moving protest against war and a hymn to the possibilities of humanity.

Zéro de conduite
France 1933 47 min
Director: Jean Vigo
Production: Jacques-Louis Nounez et Jean Vigo
Screenplay: Jean Vigo
Editing: Jean Vigo
Cinematography: Boris Kaufman
Music: Maurice Joubert
Cast: Jean Dasté, Robert Le Flon, Louis Berger
In a boarding school managed by a dwarf, four boys punished for bad behaviour put up a violent rebellion, and take their revenge on their tormentors. Cut by the producers and the censors, it is the first fiction feature film, widely autobiographic, by Vigo, who died an year after, at the age of 29 years.

L’Atalante
France 1934 89 min
Director: Jean Vigo
Production: Jacques-Louis Nounez
Screenplay: Jean Vigo, Jean Guinée, Albert Riéra
Editing: Louis Chavance
Cinematography: Boris Kaufman, Louis Berger, Jean-Paul Alphen
Music: Maurice Joubert
Cast: Michel Simon, Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté, Gilles Margaritis, Louis Lefebvre
The hard life of a just-married couple, Juliette and Jean, on board of the Atalante, a barge in continuous movement, steered by the old Père Jules and a boy. The joys of being wed are followed by misunderstandings and everyday life’s routine: Juliette also thinks about leaving, but later the couple returns to the barge.

Mon 19, 3.30pm
Teatro Strehler

Guernica
France 1949 12 min
Director: Alain Resnais
Production: Pierre Braunberger
Screenplay: ispirato alle opere di Paul Eluard e Pablo Picasso
Editing: Alain Resnais
Cinematography: Henry Ferrand
Music: Guy Bernard
This small but powerful film opens with a photograph of the destroyed town of Guernica, bombed without warning by the german aviation on April 26 1937, and uses fragments of Picasso's epic painting, together with other works by the artist and a passionate poetic text by Paul Eluard, to create a moving protest against war and a hymn to the possibilities of humanity.

Initiation à la danse des possédés
France 1949 25 min Director: Jean Rouch
Production: Jean Rouch
Cinematography: Jean Rouch
The initiation of a woman into the ritual possession dances of the Songhay people in Firgoun (Niger).

Tue 20, 3pm
Teatro Strehler

They live by night
USA 1949 95 min
Director: Nicholas Ray
Production: John Houseman-RKO Radio Pictures Inc.
Screenplay: Nicholas Ray, Charles Schnee
Editing: Sherman Todd
Cinematography: Gorge E.Diskant
Music: Leigh Carline
Cast: Farley Granger, Cathy O’Donnell, Howard Da Silva, Helen Craig
In the tough 30’s reality in America, a young man, unjustly imprisoned, escapes with two criminals and is involved in a robbery. In love with a girl, he hides with her, but his old friends ask for his participation in another robbery. Ray’s debut as a filmmaker, the film is based on Edward Anderson’s Thieves Like Us.

Wed 21, 7pm
Spazio Oberdan

Ossessione
Italy 1942 135 min
Director: Luchino Visconti
Production: ICI
Screenplay: Luchino Visconti, Giuseppe De Santis, Gianni Puccini, Mario Alicata
Editing: Mario Serandrei
Cinematography: Domenico Scala, Aldo Tonti
Music: Giuseppe Rosati
Cast: Massimo Girotti, Clara Calamai, Elio Marcuzzo
A vagabond, named Gino, stops by at a shop along the Po river, and becomes the lover of Giovanna, the wife of the unaware owner. Gino and Giovanna decide to kill her husband, but their relationship is then corrupted by the collection of the insurance (which also arouses suspicion in the police). Based on The postman always rings twice by James Cain, Visconti’s debut is usually considered as the starting point of neo-realism, for its expressiveness that breaks the traditional preciosity of fascist filmmaking.

Thu 22, 9.15pm
Spazio Oberdan

Goya, I disastri della guerra-La Festa di Sant’Isidoro,
Italy 1950 16 min
Director: Luciano Emmer
Production: Sergio Amidei
Screenplay: Luciano Emmer
Cinematography: Mario Bava
A film in two episodes, dedicated to Goya’s graphic works. The first one depicts the civil uprising in Madrid during the French occupation. The second one is dedicated to Sant’Isidro feast.

Initiation à la danse des possédés
France 1949 25 min Director: Jean Rouch
Production: Jean Rouch
Cinematography: Jean Rouch
The initiation of a woman into the ritual possession dances of the Songhay people in Firgoun (Niger).

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
France 1944 90 min
Director: Robert Bresson
Production: Raoul Ploquin
Screenplay: Robert Bresson
Editing: Jean Feyte
Cinematography: Philippe Agostini
Music: Jean-Jacques Grunenwald
Cast: Maria Casarès, Paul Bernard, Elina Labourdette, Lucienne Bogaert…
Left by her ex-lover Jean, the rich bourgeois Hélène plans her revenge: she manages to make him fall in love with Agnès, a young woman that provides for her mother thanks to the generosity of her occasional escorts. When they get married, Hélène decides to reveal Jean the truth about Agnes’ behaviour, but love helps the couple overcome the situation. Second feature film by Bresson, it was inspired by an episode of Jacques le fataliste by Denis Diderot.

Sat 24, 5pm
Spazio Oberdan

The Southerner
USA 1945 92 min
Director: Jean Renoir
Production: Rober Hakim, Robert L.Loew
Screenplay: Jean Renoir con William Faulkner
Editing: Greg C.Tallas
Cinematography: Lucine Andriot
Music: Werner Janssen
Cast: Zachary Scott, Betty Field, J.Carrol Naish, Beulah Bondi
Sam Tucker, with his wife Nana, farms a piece of land in the South of the United States: after many difficulties he manages to inaugurate a relationship based on solidarity with his neighbours, that proves to be crucial when bad weather destroys the cotton crop. Based on a novel by George Sessions Perry, the screenplay was written by Renoir in collaboration with William Faulkner.