Director: Nanni Moretti
IT/1996/35mm/color/7mins
The OPENING DAY OF CLOSE-UP is a classic
short from Italy's most influential director, that
sums up the state of cinema in less than 10
minutes.
With the awarding of the Palme d'Or at
the 2001 Cannes Film Festival to Nanni
Moretti's new film, The Son's Room, a
wider international community has begun
to learn what many have long known: that
Moretti is a bellwether of contemporary
Italian cinema. From the early 1970s, when
his first Super-8 shorts were a hit with
Roman cinema clubs, to this most recent
success, the forty-seven-year-old Moretti
has written, directed, and starred in each
of his films. An intellectual even amidst
low-brow slapstick, Moretti, practices the
art of balancing comedy with deeper
metaphysical concerns and a political
consciousness.
At his cinema in Rome, the Nuovo Sacher, Nanni
Moretti anxiously oversees preparations for the
premiere of the film Close-up, by Iranian director
Abbas Kiarostami. Meanwhile Disney's The Lion
King is taking Italy by storm.
Commentary by Nanni Moretti, recorded in Rome, Italy
Courtesy of Sacher Films
