Roger Deutsch – Quattro racconti (incontro + proiezioni)
Mercoledì 15 maggio 2019 – racconti h19.30, proiezioni h21.30
Menomale – Bologna
in collaborazione con MOVIMCAT – The Moving Image Catalog

Roger Deutsch (Green Bray, Wisconsin, 1952). Nel 1979 esordisce scrivendo e co-producendo il film di culto Blank Generation di Ulli Lommel, con Richard Hell, Carol Bouquet e Andy Warhol. Dopo vari film horror a basso budget con il ruolo di produttore esecutivo, nel 1983 realizza il suo primo film da regista, Dead People, vincitore di vari premi nel circuito dei festival indipendenti americani (Ann Arbor, Iowa City, Black Maria). Dal 1993 al 2002 insegna sceneggiatura a Roma, dove ha girato il suo primo lungometraggio da regista, Suor Sorriso (Sister Smile), con Ginevra Colonna e Antonio Salines, biopic di Jeanine Deckers, suora cantante morta suicida nel 1985. Dal 2009 al 2015 lavora a Repetition, un ciclo di 5 film con titoli musicali, creati con found footage. Da uno dei personaggi di Repetition, trae la storia per The Boy on the Train, del 2016, che scrive, dirige e produce, e che vince il Best Narrative Feature al Dallas Video Festival. Nel 2018 completa Fathers and Sons che racconta la storia della sua famiglia paterna, dal 1745 al 2017, concentrandosi sulla morte misteriosa di Sigmund, il nonno, del 1926.
Roger Deutsch vive attualmente a Budapest.

Il programma proposto, dal suo primo film a una nuova opera in anteprima mondiale, si focalizza sul modo in cui l’autore costruisce le sue storie servendosi di materiali autobiografici, fiction, film di famiglia e immagini d’archivio, mescolando costantemente finzione e realtà. Il programma è parte di un tour italiano (Torino, Milano, Bologna, Roma) – altre info qui.

Saranno proiettati:
Dead People (1974/1983/2005) 17′
Mario Makes a Movie (1987/2004) 12′
Father and Sons (2018) 30′
It’s About Time (2019) 8′

Su Dead People

“…recent films of Roger Deutsch, works that hover over the issues of memory and disappearance and that cannily keep nostalgia at a distance while seeming to be drowning in it. In Dead People Deutsch tells the fictionalized history of “Frank” an elderly black man whom he actually befriended. But since the notion of friendship suggests a certain sort of reciprocity, perhaps it would be accurate to call Frank an object of fascination, a “found object upon which Deutsch could project his own stereotypes …This kind of self betraying candor is all over Dead People and it functions not as apologetic bluster but as incisive self critique. Deutsch’s adoration of “otherness” and it’s relegation to the position of temporary fancy expose not only the subtler varieties of racism but also shows how time altered his original perspective on the project. …marked by memorable moments filtered through a kind of foggy chiaroscuro. Shots of rambling highways, desolate main streets and a ‘dead’ Frank being shaved for his funeral encircle the film with a black-and-whiteness that functions both literally and metaphorically. It is a melancholy exposition of race, life and death in economically depressed small town America.
…Deutsch’s illuminating picturings push close to film’s ability to reactivate the feel of that which has disappeared; but rather than lolling in the shelter of the simulative, these films subtly questions their characters’ relation to history and to their own deaths. They are portraits that remind us these characters are done, through with, no more: yet at the same time they bring them “to life.” They question cinema’s ability to formalize, to resuscitate and to re-represent the past.” Barbara Kruger, ARTFORUM

Su Mario Makes a Movie

“From the first frames – a series of portraits of adults with special needs – we engage in this moving, emotionally dense human drama. The integration of text, image, music, and heartfelt dialogue is masterfully constructed as we navigate between issues of truth, beauty, reality and intuitive image-making. Mario’s images are often painfully beautiful, and the closing sequence of family footage is simultaneously illuminating, troubling, and deeply touching.” Black Maria Film Festival

Su Fathers and Sons

“Chronicling the history of his family from 1787 to now while looking for the answers to some buried secrets regarding certain relatives, Roger Deutsch soothingly voices over his latest effort – a poetic, travelogue-esque 30-minute documentary which takes the viewer on an engaging personal journey from Hungary to America and back via beautiful vintage photographs, grainy home movies (that often look better than professional and persistently stand the test of time), as well as his own impressionistic footage, with the unique experience enhanced by excellent musical choices.” Nilola Gocić