The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, together with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, will be launching worldwide the first edition of ‘Fare cinema’ (i.e. ‘Filmmaking’), a cultural film-related series of events which will be held in 100 cities, from 21 to 27 May 2018, through embassies and the network of Italian cultural institutes.
The Embassy of Italy in Malta and the Italian Cultural Institute in Valletta have organised, in cooperation with the Department of Italian and the M.A. in Film Studies of the University of Malta the public talk ‘Frontiere lontane. Il cinema western italiano’ (i.e. ‘Far-Away Frontiers: The Spaghetti-Western Phenomenon’) which will be delivered in Italian by Antonio Tentori on Tuesday 22 May, at 6.30pm in Valletta, St George’s Square (free entrance).
The so-called spaghetti western is among the most prolific and successful film trends within Italian cinema. After having replaced the sword-and-sandal genre, the Italian western became highly popular through hundreds of films made by such directors as Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci, Sergio Sollima, Duccio Tessari and Tonino Valerii. And yet, despite its unavoidably stereotypical features, such a trend took on different forms, ranging from the appropriation of the legendary character of Zorro to self-referential parody, till its peculiar decline towards the end of the 1970s. Many unforgettable and iconic actors contributed to making these films successful, both in Italy and abroad: suffice it to mention Clint Eastwood, Giuliano Gemma, Franco Nero, Tomas Milian, Lee Van Cleef, George Hilton, Anthony Steffen, Gianni Garko, and of course, the sparkling twosome Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.
Antonio Tentori (Rome, 1960) is a writer of essays, novels, poetry, and short stories, as well as a scenarist and a screenwriter. He authored and co-authored numerous monographs on Italian popular culture such as – among his most recent publications – Last Action Heroes: Il cinema italiano d’azione degli anni ’80 (Bloodbuster, 2018), Livello Scarlatto: Cult movies dell’horror italiano (Crac, 2014), Fantastico Tex: Tutte le storie horror e fantasy di Tex Willer (Kawama, 2013) and Tutto Dario Argento dalla A alla Z (Profondo Rosso, 2012). As a screenwriter, he has worked with cult- and world-renowned directors such as Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Sergio Stivaletti.