{ snow and the city - bologna, february 2012 }
More beauty from my hometown in the snow.
PS. Photo number 5 - on the right: the primary school in which my grandmother was a teacher for over 30 years.
{ snow and the city - bologna, february 2012 }
More beauty from my hometown in the snow.
PS. Photo number 5 - on the right: the primary school in which my grandmother was a teacher for over 30 years.
Frankfurt-am-Main (2012), expired Polaroid film
Photographs by Umberto Pettazzoni - check out Umberto’s exhibition of dry colour prints/pinhole photographs kicking off tomorrow at Circolo Arci Belleville Genova, Italy.
Here’s the stuff in Italian:
15BLUEs - Polaroid di Umberto Pettazzoni (a cura di Elisa Brivio). 15 blues perché sono 15 e il blu è la tonalità delle polaroid scadute. Non sono immagini, o meglio, non solo. Sono prima di tutto oggetti che restituiscono occasioni, ambienti, sensazioni. Oggetti, e come tali vengono restituiti: inscatolati. Hanno un peso, un volume, una consistenza che è propria della materia. Hanno l’immediatezza del digitale, e al contempo l’irripetibilità antica del dagherrotipo, unicum positivo e negativo al tempo stesso. Tangibile, fragile. E poi sono sguardi che s’appoggiano sulle cose, visioni evanescenti, malinconiche, non tristi: blues, appunto. E ancora, sono pensieri buttati giù direttamente in bella. Prove di nulla. Estemporanee fini a se stesse, appunti visivi che si muovono fra Milano e Francoforte, passando per altri luoghi, non precisati, perché il diario appartiene al viaggio, ma anche al quotidiano. Il risultato è uno scrapbook capace di raccontare, con discrezione, l’intimità di tempi e luoghi inanimati.
Check out this interactive documentary about Predappio, a village in Emilia Romagna infamous for being Mussolini’s hometown and his final resting place.
The town has become a site of pilgrimage for people who revel in the cult of Il Duce - dressing up in uniforms, organising parades and commemorative religious services, visiting his grave - and its entire economy rests on organised propaganda tourism and Fascist merchandise.
In the documentary you can hear the left-wing mayor and the local residents talk about the contradictions and incoherences that the town crystallises: a fascinating microcosm of contemporary Italy and the tensions that beset its preposterous ideologies and historical nostalgia. Equally informative, revealing, and disturbing, a terrific piece of work.
You can stream the documentary in a linear way form the website linked above, and click your way through a series of hyperlinked pathways that expand on the themes and issues raised in the main narrative. Available with French and English subtitles.
[POST EDITED 22/11/2012 to include English subs link.]
36°C in Bologna - Italy vs Germany - BT is here for the night: the heat is well and truly ON.
Hello Bologna, you’re beautiful in the summertime.
Last night around 7000 people gathered in the main square of Bologna, Italy for a free screening of the newly restored print of Once Upon a Time in America. The complete version of Sergio Leone’s masterpiece clocks in at 4 hours and 20 minutes.
The screening was part of Il cinema ritrovato, the city’s annual festival of early and classic cinema recovered and restored to its original glory.
(photos via Repubblica.it)
Tessera del partigiano Italo Calvino (“Santiago”)
Reblogging myself because today is the Italian Day of Liberation, the national holiday that celebrates the end of WWII after the Allied troops defeated the Nazi-fascist occupiers. Most importantly, we remember the feats of our Resistance fighters (Partigiani), the first modern Italians, the ones who saved our collective asses.
Here is Italo Calvino’s ID as a volunteer Resistance soldier. His chosen Partisan code name was Santiago because he was born in Cuba.
W la Resistenza.
Bologna, Italy (by Giona e la balena)
Just got to Bologna for Christmas. There’s a dog here, a Christmas tree, and even a mini-foosball table. Hooray for home!
L’Eroica: una filmografia incompleta via NoBordersMagazine YouTube channel
Il primo video ufficiale di NBM, girato a Gaiole in Chianti, dove ogni anno veri eroici in bici d’epoca sfidano le colline e le strade sterrate del Chianti in una gara non competitiva a cui si partecipa per e con un viscerale amore per le due ruote. guardare per credere!
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At the beginning of October No Borders Magazine went to Gaiole in Chianti to cover L’Eroica, an amazing vintage bike race across the beautiful hills of Tuscany.
We took some photographs and shot our first original video - watch it and tell your friends. On your bikes - get set - go!
Awesome stuff! Makes you want to get on your bike and ride (to Tuscany, preferably). Something I can’t quite do at the moment, since on Sunday night some bastard nicked my beautiful leather bike seat.