ETTORE PASCULLI
Graduated from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. Graduated in Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan, he has been involved as a visual artist since he was young. He was one of the founders of the "Militant Communication Laboratory" and since then his works have been exhibited in numerous Italian and international museums and galleries. For over a decade he presided over the Brera International Center and directed its cultural, artistic and cinematographic and audiovisual production activities. Managing Director for TEN YEARS, from 1984 to 1993 he directed, promoted and consolidated the technological innovation of the Cinecittà ROMA group and was a RAI director where he created numerous programmes, theme tunes and videos. He taught directing for several years in the Masters of the National Chamber.
In 1987/88 he was on the selective jury of the Desica prize at the Venice Film Biennale. He is the creator and director of technological film festivals such as: “CINEMA IS INNOVATION” as part of the “Immagine Elettronica” festival in Bologna and “PROGETTO LEONARDO” chaired by Francis Ford Coppola, Vittorio Storaro and Douglas Trumbol (Oscar for the special effects of film "2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY") with whom he collaborated in the making of his Showscan film "Leonardo's Dream". With numerous publications ("IL CINEMA DELL'INGEGNO", winner of the Fabbri Prize for best non-fiction, "IL GRANDE EUROPEO CINEMA" and "MILANO CINEMA PRODIGIO", Mazzotta Editore, some of which are present in the main national film school libraries, and 23 feature films) is among the first to experiment with virtual reality and digital cinema with the online distribution of films such as "LA FABBRICA DEL VAPORE" Municipality of Milan, AEM), "CACCIATORI DI STORIE.IT" (Rai 3) and " GOLIATH THE HUMAN BEAST" (Cinecittà - based on the story "EL COLOMBRE" by Dino Buzzati) Six of his films, "LE CORDERIE DELL'IMAGINARIO", "PRIMA DEL FUTURO", "FUGA DA PARADISO" (winner of the International Cinema and Ecology of Tenerife) "THE SECRET FRIEND" (against doping in horse riding), "IL BENE OSCURO" (on the brain drain) and "ITALY AMORE MIO" (on integration and violence against women), were presented as part of the Venice International Exhibition and three of which received the High Recognition of the President of the Italian Republic.
In 1987/88 he was on the selective jury of the Desica prize at the Venice Film Biennale. He is the creator and director of technological film festivals such as: “CINEMA IS INNOVATION” as part of the “Immagine Elettronica” festival in Bologna and “PROGETTO LEONARDO” chaired by Francis Ford Coppola, Vittorio Storaro and Douglas Trumbol (Oscar for the special effects of film "2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY") with whom he collaborated in the making of his Showscan film "Leonardo's Dream". With numerous publications ("IL CINEMA DELL'INGEGNO", winner of the Fabbri Prize for best non-fiction, "IL GRANDE EUROPEO CINEMA" and "MILANO CINEMA PRODIGIO", Mazzotta Editore, some of which are present in the main national film school libraries, and 23 feature films) is among the first to experiment with virtual reality and digital cinema with the online distribution of films such as "LA FABBRICA DEL VAPORE" Municipality of Milan, AEM), "CACCIATORI DI STORIE.IT" (Rai 3) and " GOLIATH THE HUMAN BEAST" (Cinecittà - based on the story "EL COLOMBRE" by Dino Buzzati) Six of his films, "LE CORDERIE DELL'IMAGINARIO", "PRIMA DEL FUTURO", "FUGA DA PARADISO" (winner of the International Cinema and Ecology of Tenerife) "THE SECRET FRIEND" (against doping in horse riding), "IL BENE OSCURO" (on the brain drain) and "ITALY AMORE MIO" (on integration and violence against women), were presented as part of the Venice International Exhibition and three of which received the High Recognition of the President of the Italian Republic.
For many years he has collaborated with large companies and institutions involved in social responsibility projects applied to cinema and its cross-media communication on the web. Some of his main films were fully sponsored: “IL VIAGGIO”, “IL TREDICESIMO UOMO”, “OLTRE IL GLASS”, “L'AMICO SECRETO”, “IL BENE OSCURO”, “ASFALTO RED”, “ITALIA AMORE MIO” "RICE". , LOVE AND FANTASY". His latest film "IL MONDO DELLA SPERANCE" was distributed in schools and promoted by AGIS scuola and Corriere della sera. Between 2021 and 2022 with the animated short film Humanity Key he participated and obtained important awards in 23 international festivals from the Far East to the Far West. In 2022 he is a member of the jury of the international Hollywood Gold Awards festival. Currently with "Namì dances with God" he is achieving equally as many results including qualification for the OSCAR for the animated shorts section.
Your project entered our festival. What is your project about?
The Israeli digital artist Marina Amadal recently took an old photo: that of Czeslawa Kwoka, a 14-year-old Polish girl, deported to Awschwitz with her mother in 1942. The photo moved the world of social media for its rawness truth, for the innocent beauty and for the tragic fate of the little girl. NAMI' (dance with God) cultivates a great dream: learning to dance, even in a condition of extreme difficulty in life. The discovery of the body through the harmony of movement is for her a way of living and escaping from the tragic barbarity to which her mother, like others, is subjected. Between dream and reality he lives like this, a double life. Partly true and partly imaginary. She meets a mysterious and severe character, a dancer who hides from madmen and fanatics and who wants to teach her to dance. Through her dance the dancer teaches her much more than simply how to dance.
What are your ambitions with your project?
Ensuring that the great art of cinematic storytelling speaks to people's consciences and contributes to their internal and imaginative growth. After all, a scientist and not an artist, Albert Einstein, declared that “logic can take you from A to B. Imagination can take you anywhere. I know that developing an imaginative story and setting it in a Nazi concentration camp, as I did with Namì, is very risky. But who better than a little girl, with her enchanted attraction for a life she doesn't know she can't not live, can lead us into the magical dimension of fantasizing.
Tell us something about your filming? What pleasantly surprised you?
Being an animation short, my shots were processed not with human beings but with avatars and environments created by PC pixels. But given the particularity of the topic, I researched a lot on everything that exists iconographic, musical and video of the period and conditions in which the deportees lived. I don't deny that in recreating some of those circumstances I often had to stop because of emotion. In particular, this happened when I listened to the musical arrangement of gam-gam, a Jewish ballad about the relationship with those who have left us, created by Ennio Morricone and which I inserted at the end of the short.
Which audience is your film aimed at?
The film is like a cartoon made for adults but which can intrigue children. I had proof of this by sending it to the International Children Film Festival in India where it not only won but had a large following in the schools of Jaipur.
Why distributors should buy your movie?
Because it deals with a partly known topic but through a new story starting from social media and the large following that the little girl's story has had but above all for the language and techniques of the story developed with very contemporary, modern styles that recall iconographic imagery of the video game. Even if it's a "game" that makes you think a lot, as in our case.
How would you specify your work? What characterizes your film?
It is a work inspired by the concept of Meta-Humanism, which is not just a digital technology. Meta Human is an almost philosophical concept. It means representing the human being through a transfigured photorealism to bring to life stories that concern us all but through a suspended representation that is one meter from the ground.
Why did you decide to become a director?
I got there through the figurative arts. My training starts from the Brera Academy and continues at the Faculty of Architecture. I have always been attracted by the communicative power of the media and its artificial forms of representing reality. I discovered through artistic work that cinema was the most complete form in this sense and that it offered a complexity of possibilities for unparalleled elaborations.
Who is your role model?
Models are useful until you aspire to become a model, primarily for yourself. However, I believe that Federico Fellini is still today a point of reference for many who work on the dimension of film imagery.
Where do you look for inspiration for your films?
Every form of art, said Roberto Rossellini, almost always starts from an emotional impulse. The photo of the Polish girl gave me this impulse. Naturally, emotion has very different characteristics from artist to artist. It depends on his background, culture, sensitivity and his true existential interests.
What topics interest you most?
Naturally those that lead people to travel with their imagination. The fantastic world that each of us possesses and keeps within ourselves. We just need to learn to know it: it can offer us great opportunities and make life less anxious, above all more true despite knowing that we live in a world of pre-established falsehoods. After all, all this is the coherent consequence of the separation that has now been firmly established between reality and its representation. Since the times of Fellini and Guy Debord it has only moved from the domain of the mass media, as certification of the real, to personal media as the emulation of the false real.
What do you consider your greatest achievement in your career?
Having managed to work, in two films, with actors with Down syndrome. An extraordinary and surprising experience that taught me a lot about the declinations of the human race. I believe it was the only case in which what happened on the set in fiction was achieved thanks to genuine realistic participation. The actors lived that as an experience of growth and true participation. For example, I remember Alessandro, a boy who had difficulty speaking, who at the end of the film had started to speak
What do you consider most important in filming?
The shooting creates the basis for then building the film during editing. Well this basis is the most complex and also the most exciting because you have to be clear about what you want to obtain from both the actors and the other departments. To avoid starting with one idea and ending up with something completely different, you have to work a lot before the takes. You must clarify ad nauseam with the interpreters about the characters you have in mind and you must have an intense relationship with the director of photography with whom you will create your visual image of what you intend to represent. The image is not only what a certain circumstance shows us but it is what is hidden behind it which is often much more significant than how it formally appears to us.
Which cinematographic shooting technique do you consider the best?
Also on this occasion I quote a great author. I am particularly pleased to mention him because he is considered the father of Italian neorealism. I'm talking about Roberto Rossellini. Well, according to him one of the artist's missions should be to disseminate and experiment with the most modern techniques, without however, he adds, forgetting the dimension of being human. For this reason I am particularly attracted by the most advanced techniques of moving the camera, the frames useful for video compositing and that of large ultra definition formats. I had already been fascinated in the past by the Showsan apparatus created by Douglas Trumbull, Oscar winner for the FX of A Space Odyssey. Today in the digital age I believe that cinema will have to move towards 8K DCP and reclaim its immersive power of storytelling. After all, domestic televisions have 4k screens. Of course when you have a high quality mater you can go anywhere even on a mobile phon.
How would you rate/what is your opinion on current cinema?
Current cinema, except for rare examples, shows clear signs of schizophrenia. The trend of the entertainment rat race is reaching unimaginable heights. Unlike in the past, today it is increasingly difficult to combine certain progress with a rigorous ideal commitment. Stars like great football players are increasingly an exclusive prerogative of show business
If it goes on like this, as my friend Francis Ford Coppola told me, everything will be done on the computer. Including the actors. And that wouldn't be bad. Deciding which eyebrows to raise without too many discussions and establishing the expressive variations of the subtexts is a potentially great challenge for an auteur cinema.
What can disappoint you in a film?
The presumption. The sneaky preceptism of some directors who believe they have the truth in their pocket just because they are behind a camera but even more so those films whose sole purpose is to entertain you for a handful of minutes. They call it entertainment, in fact, that is, making you spend time with your mind and soul at rest, which for me is a waste of time given the brevity of life.
Who supports you in your film career?
I have many friends and collaborators who have collaborated with me for many years. I have a splendid relationship with several excellent theater actors, lighting directors but above all artists and men of culture.
What are the reactions to your film? (opinion of spectators, film critics, friends and family)
Depends. For some great participation, others compliments of convenience. I must say with sincerity that in general I received the best satisfaction when I managed to do work in which I believed a lot and for which I did not submit to any form of compromise. That is: when I achieved what I wanted to achieve in an extreme way, going beyond the limits of common feeling.
Have you already visited any of the prestigious film festivals?
Many. My last two shorts alone, Humanity Key and Namì dances with God, have obtained more than 20 international awards from the Far East to the Far West. As a light poet in biography, many of my films have participated in several festivals. Namì will be released at the Lumiere cinema in Beverly Hills in September to qualify for the Oscars. More than one of my films has been presented at the Venice Film Festival.
What are your future plans in your film career?
I am currently working on a very ambitious project. A film set in a large city of art and culture that suddenly encounters the drama of war. Bordering on science fiction but extremely realistic.
Learn more:
https://youtu.be/0DIFwLf_ylc
WEB SITE
https://jezebell1.wixsite.com/ettorepasculli
LINK TRAILLER INFERNO
https://youtu.be/ve0hpEfeqYM
LINK METAHUMAN
https://metahuman.unrealengine.com/
LINK FACE BOOK
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