The National Cinema Museum presents AMOS GITAI. Architectures of memory
The National Cinema Museum pays tribute to one of the greatest living directors with the event AMOS GITAI. Architectures of memory, with a show-event which includes a video-installation in the underground of the Mole Antonelliana - open to the public for the first time -, a comprehensive retrospective of his films and the publication of a monograph volume.
Israeli filmmaker, architect by training, for over three decades Amos Gitai processes rigorous and consistent work on the questions that beset his country and the contemporary world. This filmography, which now includes more than eighty titles, imposes itself both for the need of its involvement in the complexity of reality, and the continuous and renewed search for narrative and style. The exploration of contemporary history continues today with the proposal for a video installation conceived as an intimate and emotional experience of a collective story. Its favorite themes, memory, identity and exile, are the basis of a path imbued with an extraordinary depth.
the video-installATION
National Cinema Museum, November 4, 2011 – January 8, 2012
The video installation - for the first time in Italy – ideally follows those realized by Gitai at the submarine base of Bordeaux and at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Housed in the undergrounds of the Mole Antonelliana, open to the public for the first time, the installation is structured around 18 projectors and is accompanied by numerous texts and historical documents. The work draws primarily on the experience born from filming his new movie (still unpublished), Lullaby to My Father, dedicated to his father, the Bauhaus architect Munio Weinraub. Persecuted by the Nazi because Jewish, in 1933 he managed to escape and take refuge in Palestine, where his contribution to the birth and development of architecture in the rising State of Israel proved decisive.
Memory architecture is a personal and autobiographical work, but at the same time open, rich in historical value and incentives that encourage reflection on the relationship between Architecture and Power. The images from his films, the numerous texts and historical documents make up a visual and sound path of extraordinary density in which the visitor is free to move without being forced to follow a strict narrative and temporal scan.
This exhibit is mostly an original work, since Gitai usually reinvents his installations according to the places where they are set up, and everything becomes even more special thanks to the use of the undergrounds of the Mole Antonelliana, a space hitherto inaccessible to the public, used exclusively as a service area for Museum operations.
"The installation - says Amos Gitai - evokes the materialization of a mental process, in which the archives occupy the small space of consciousness, while the projections in the underground space represent the unconscious. There are 18 video projectors and a setting comparable to that of the Palais de Tokyo, with the barbed wire, the barriers, the darkness and the great projections. In Turin there will not be the part that was under renovation in Paris, but the underground space, which is used for backgrounds, is also particularly rich in imagery. The context is important: this is true for movies as well as for exhibitions.
And the context is given by both the material conditions as well as the socio-political environment. Turin is the synthesis of what I did in Bordeaux and Paris. Of course I am struck to know that the Mole was initially designed as a synagogue; the memory of a place means a lot to me.
In this way, I challenge the public to create their own editing and this allows me to escape from the linearity of the film or music".
The video installation is taken care of by Amos Gitai, with the collaboration of Isabelle Ingold and Laurent Truchot and is made starting from video materials and documents produced by Agave Films.
Architectures of memory will be inaugurated on Friday, November 4th at 11:00 am with a press conference held by Amos Gitai and Serge Toubiana (Director of the Cinémathèque Française), followed by a preview visit to the installation.
The undergrounds of the Mole Antonelliana
The undergrounds of the Mole Antonelliana are located at a depth of 5 meters and are largely occupied by the structures that guarantee the operation of equipment and services required to manage the National Cinema Museum: the machine room for the panoramic elevator, electrical cabins and panels, mechanized wardrobe system, lockers and storerooms.
The structure follows the classic lines of the Mole Antonelliana: a perimeter walkway - which here also serves as collector for rain waters that penetrate from ground floor grids placed along the sides of the building - and an inner path separated from the first great reticular structures in reinforced concrete (the same that you see on the upper floors), made in the 30s to consolidate the entire building, which mainly houses video projectors for the installation Memory Architectures.
"In Turin, the undergrounds are beautiful - says Amos Gitai - with brick walls and concrete support columns. My projections will take place here. I do not want plasma screens but projections, this is very important; in the case of this project, it is necessary that the projections do not take place on screens, but directly on the materials that make up the wall. The building is the screen".
The path for visiting the undergrounds is accessed via an internal staircase, next to some service rooms, while the exit is on the opposite side, through a beautiful staircase with stone steps and wrought iron handrails, that leads to the garden of the Mole Antonelliana.
For the public, free access to the undergrounds and a visit to the installation will be possible in the afternoon of Friday, November 4, starting at 2.00 p.m.
From Saturday, November 5 to Sunday, January 8, 2012:
Admission for groups (max 25 people), with departures every hour from 10.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m.
Saturday until 10.00 p.m.
Full € 7.00, reduced € 5.00
THE RESTROSPECTIVE
Cinema Massimo, November 3-18, 2011
The complex, a tribute to Amos Gitai, is enriched with a retrospective which proposes around twenty films selected by the Director from over eighty short films, documentaries and fiction films made to date. In particular, the selection will propose all fiction films plus some documentaries related to the themes dear to him: exile, memory, identity and the Palestinian question.
The exhibition Amos Gitai. Architectures of memory will be inaugurated on November 3rd at 8.45 p.m. with the screening of Caramel in the presence of Amos Gitai, Serge Toubiana (director of the Cinémathèque Française) and Alberto Barbera.
For the occasion, the National Cinema Museum has printed new copies of the movie Caramel, Esther, and Kippur. We thank the Institut Français and the Cinémathèque Française for providing many of the titles.
THE BOOK
To complement the exhibition, the National Cinema Museum has produced a monograph Amos Gitai. Architectures of memory, containing critical essays by Jean-Michel Frodon, interventions by Amos Gitai and an introduction by Alberto Barbera, plus a complete filmography by Grazia Paganelli and many images, some of which are new.
Part of the texts were written for Amos Gitai out-publication. 5 films, made by Culturesfrance (now Institut français) in 2009. We thank the director Valerie Mouroux for her kind permission to use the texts.
EXHIBITION INFORMATION
Mole Antonelliana
Via Montebello 20, Torino
Tel. +39 011 8138.560/1
www.museocinema.it
Times
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday: 9.00 a.m. – 8.00 p.m.
Saturday: 9.00 a.m. – 11.00 p.m.
Monday closed
Visit of the installation “Architectures of memory” and the underground of the Mole Antonelliana
Admission for groups (max 25 people), with departures every hour from 10.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m.
Saturday until 10.00 p.m.
Full € 7.00, reduced € 5.00
Entrance to the Cinema Museum and Panoramic Elevator
Museum: full € 7,00; reduced € 5,00
Elevator: full € 5,00; reduced € 3,50
Museum + Elevator: full € 9,00; reduced € 7,00