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The Retrospective for the 67th edition of the Festival del film Locarno (6–16 August 2014) will be dedicated to the Italian production studio Titanus.

Numerous European and American institutions will repeat the program: the Cineteca di Bologna, the Cineteca Nazionale (National Film Archive) in Rome, the National Cinema Museum in Turin, the Cinémathèque suisse, the Cinémas du Grütli in Geneva, the Filmpodium in Zurich, the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York, the American Cinematheque and the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles.

The retrospective will be accompanied by an English-friendly book.

Bernard Eisenschitz, Miguel Marias and Olaf Moller's essays already in the can.

Carlo Chatrian talks about our book on MUBI:
http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/locarno- ... of-titanus" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Already available on Amazon.it
http://www.amazon.it/gp/product/8898623135/

The book covers Italian cinema evolution from 1904 to 2014, ranging from early silent cinema to post-modern television, featuring original essays, interviews and production papers. Despite being focused on Italian most important major company, we have chosen an auterist perspective, investigating how directors' and producers' contributions melt together during the 1945-1964 golden age of Italian cinema.

Some highlights from the book:

> Neapolitan silents
> Matarazzo's melodramas
> Mastro5's revue films and musical extravaganzas
> Risi and Comencini's early comedies
> Tourneur and Corbucci's peplums
> Ava Gardner's Italian films
> nouvelle vague Italian style (Olmi, Zurlini, Petri)
> confessions of Visconti's editor
> Aldrich's Sodom and Gomorrah backstory
> De Santis on The Wolves director's cut
> memo from producer Goffredo Lombardo
> unfilmed projects
> 150+ photos
> essays by Roberto Turigliatto, Simone Starace, Bernard Eisenschitz, Sergio Toffetti, Sergio M. Germani, Miguel Marías, Chris Fujiwara, Olaf Möller, Jean Douchet, Stefania Parigi.

Just bought the book. Prints are available after a short OOP in any European amazon.
Grazie, Saimo.

Hope you will enjoy the reading

I have just come back from Locarno, where I attended a multilingual round-table, now available on streaming (no subs).

Is De Santis' UOMINI E LUPI (aka. THE WOLVES) available on DVD anywhere, I wonder?... (Also managed at the w/e to order the Titanus book from Amazon, thanks)...

Thanks for your support.
As far as I know, The Wolves is only available on bootleg TV rip, but no official OAR release. By the way, the print we screened at Locarno was in poor condition, so the film would urgently need a restoration.

By far the least / the less interesting De Santis' work.

"menos interesante" how is it in proper English? Sorry.

Can't comment obviously as I've not seen it... Have all De Santis' films on DVD from CACCIA TRAGICA through to GIORNI D'AMORE and find he pursues a fascinating individual path through neorealism...

Where did you get the DVD of Caccia tragica? I didn't know it was available.

I really love The Wolves, and so did the audience at Locarno screening (including Zurlini's widow). In his letters, De Santis speaks of the film as kind of Italian answer to John Ford's The Searchers.

otis wrote:Where did you get the DVD of Caccia tragica? I didn't know it was available.

I thought so too, but then a copy came up on Ebay, which turned out to be a DVD-R with optional fansubs, not the very best but still a workable copy... The residual WWII minefields & and all those bicycles scattered around the empty piazza are enduring images from an interesting film, on which Antonioni cut his teeth as a co-screenwriter (during his research picking up the kernel of an idea which eventually became IL GRIDO)... BTW for those of unlimited resources a copy of the original script & 15 photos is a snip at €600 on Maremagnum here...

Have you enjoyed the book?

Here a couple of articles about Titanus retro & book:

The retrospective of eclectic works by Italy's veteran Titanus production company may well have been the highlight of this summer's Locarno Film Festival.
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/iphone-arti ... m-1.612948" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Titanus. Family diary of italian cinema supone, pues, una pieza de considerable valor historiográfico, que rápidamente abandona las intenciones didácticas de sus textos iniciales para abordar una profunda lectura de archivo que incita a repasar los principales títulos de su filmografía.
http://revistamagnolia.es/2014/09/libro ... i-sabinae/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, I've been dipping in & out of the Titanus book... It's a really excellent piece of work... Congratulations indeed, Saimo, to you & your two colleagues for such a comprehensive, informative and thought provoking resource... It paints a fascinating multidimensional picture of a great production company, its people, stories and films, and cultural & economic context... Other interested forum members should certainly rush to pick this up, it's a really beautifully produced volume!...

ellipsis7 wrote:Yes, I've been dipping in & out of the Titanus book... It's a really excellent piece of work... Congratulations indeed, Saimo, to you & your two colleagues for such a comprehensive, informative and thought provoking resource... It paints a fascinating multidimensional picture of a great production company, its people, stories and films, and cultural & economic context... Other interested forum members should certainly rush to pick this up, it's a really beautifully produced volume!...

I got my copy and I agree. I also purchased, at the same time, the Medusa edition of The Leopard Blu-ray which includes on a second disc the documentary The Last Leopard, which covers a lot of the same material and complements the book very nicely.

Film Comment: "The Titanus retrospective was a gold mine for cinephiles, full of films each deserving an in-depth look (and, in certain cases, rediscovery)".
http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/festiv ... rospective" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm guessing your upcoming announcement is going to be Titanus related? :p

Unfortunately no, but a couple of films from the Titanus retrospective will be included in the upcoming DVD collection...

Saimo wrote:I really love The Wolves, and so did the audience at Locarno screening (including Zurlini's widow). In his letters, De Santis speaks of the film as kind of Italian answer to John Ford's The Searchers.

A quasi DVD version has surfaced on DVD-R stateside here, although rights wise this Movie Detective outlet is obviously existing in a pretty grey area to say the least...

Titanus program at the NY Film Society of Lincoln Center.
http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/ti ... ian-cinema" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Titanus program at Harvard Film Archive:
http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2015ju ... tanus.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;