4.17.12 Film screening: The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio

Tuesday, April 17, 2012 6:30pm (Cohen Lounge)

In the process of gathering musicians in the Esquilino, a dynamic immigrant neighborhood in Rome, to create an eclectic orchestra along with composer Mario Tronco and the Apollo 11 group, filmmaker Agostino Ferrente captured the individual stories of the artists in this captivating documentary. Shot over a period of five years, from the birth of the orchestra to its first successful public performances, The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio brings together thirty professional and street musicians of eleven different nationalities, representing a microcosm of the cultural diversity of contemporary Italy. Indebted to a long tradition of documentary filmmakers in Italy (De Seta, Grifi), Ferrente brought together the lesson of engagé art and the lightness of modern technology and cultural mobility in a lyrical documusical that reflects what he calls “a cinema of relation.” The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio was screened at international festivals such as Locarno (Switzerland) and Tribeca (New York), and has received several awards, including the Nastro d’Argento/Silver Ribbon and Globo d’oro/Golden Globe for best documentary.

Introduction by Dr. Teresa Fiore (Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies, Department of Spanish and Italian)
Q&A led by Dr. Alex Lykidis (Film Studies Program, Department of English)

For more information about the documentary, The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio
For a New York Times article on the orchestra, In a Changing Italy, a Band With a Multicultural Face

Sponsored by the Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies in collaboration with the Film Studies Program (Department of English), the Coccia Institute for the Italian Experience in America, and Amici Club at Montclair State University.

Attached Media

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