Events | Exhibitions

LO SCHERMO DELL’ARTE

Lo schermo dell’arte Film Festival 2019, 12ª edizione
Firenze, Cinema La Compagnia, Palazzo Strozzi, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, ore 21:00

Welcome Palermo di MASBEDO, Italia, 2018-2019, 75’
vo: italiano; st: inglese
Prima mondiale alla presenza degli artisti

Nel 2018, in occasione di Manifesta 12 a Palermo, il duo artistico MASBEDO ha prodotto Videomobile trasformando un vecchio furgone in un “carro video”. Sorta di laboratorio mobile, questo curioso mezzo con un palco per performance e interviste è divenuto nei mesi della biennale un’installazione multi canale interattiva. Welcome Palermo, dedicato al rapporto della città siciliana con il cinema, è l’evoluzione di quel progetto. Vi si alternano interviste a personalità conosciute e non, e materiali d’archivio, performance di writers, dj e cittadini palermitani che leggono sul palco le domande sulla sessualità di Comizi d’amore di Pier Paolo Pasolini.

MASBEDO will present the world premiere ofWelcome Palermoon the occasion of Lo Schermo dell’Arte Film Festival, Florence. The feature film spans the formal and narrative development of the Videomobile project, the coherent multi-channel video installation conceived for Manifesta 12 Palermo.
Welcome Palermo takes its title from a random street mural that greets anyone who arrives in the city from the airport. It embodies a dystopian welcome message that sets the city itself as the protagonist, and not just as a simple landscape.
The journey of the Videomobileis the core of the 80-minute feature film. The artist duo transformed an old OM van of the 1970s into a “video wagon” as a experimentation to patrol and investigate the Sicilian territory and its artist’s cinema.
Thanks to a particular suggestion by the curatorial team of Manifesta 12, the research began in 2018 and attributed the involvement of several leading figures in the iconic cinema scene, such as Vittorio De Seta, Ugo Gregoretti, Luchino Visconti, whilst investigating other professionals that worked in cinema in an almost anonymous and unconventional manner.
Welcome Palermo is not only a collective research of materials for the project of Manifesta 12, but an extensive buildout of the research process carried out by the artists even after the biennial. The “video wagon” has altered the stage for new performances, interactions and interviews, bringing in personages such as the mayor of Palermo Leoluca Orlando, Princess Vittoria Alliata of Villafranca and Valguarnera, and the Tamil community residing in the city.
The Videomobile of MASBEDO completes a physical journey through the archives and memory of the Sicilian experimental cinema and becomes the means by which memory acquires form and meaning in contemporary society.