The Directing activities of the Taviani brothers performed “on 4
Hands" is almost unique case in the history of cinema in the last 50
years. It has led to the creation of 22 film works which won many
international awards from Cannes, Berlin and Venice to Montreal, Moscow
and many other prestigious festivals.
Vittorio (1929) and Paolo (1931) Taviani are born in small village in Tuscany, Italy.
They
study art at the University of Pisa, and later turn to cinema,
influenced by his meeting with the neo-realist drama Payza Roberto
Rossellini. In 1954 the brothers shot their first of seven documentaries
– Miniato, luglio '44, a story about the slaughter of many residents of
their home village by the Nazis. Their debut feature film Un uomo da
bruciare appeared in 1962, starring Gian Maria Volonte with his first
main role.
Sharp and ruthless observers of the changes that
rocked and form the Italian society, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
intertwine in their work history, psychological analysis and lyricism,
highlighted by the influential music of Nicola Piovani, which turns the
films into a kind of cinematographed operas where dreams and reality are
closely related.
With their film I fuorilegge del matrimonio
(1963) starring Ugo Tognazzi and Annie Girardot, the directing pair
creates a bitter-sweet comedy with divorce as a subject, but the first
major international success comes to them with the film Allonsanfan
(1974) – an overlook of Italy in the years after the Napoleon and the
failure of the erupted revolutionary unrest.
In 1977, taking up
the story of the harsh fate of Sardinian boy brought up by his father
shepherd with a rare brutality. The story of Padre Padrone causes stormy
discussion in Cannes, but won the jury to the degree to be awarded the
"Golden Palm". The war theme, seen through the prism of childhood
continues to excite the Taviani brothers in The Night of St. Lawrence
(1982), which received the Special award of the jury of Cannes.
One
of the greatest films directorial couples in cinema approach the social
and political issues of their time with a poetic, rather than
philosophical point of view, using the allegory in the past and future
times. Utopia is both the essence of their work and the fundamental
relationship that supports their film to the real world. It is hardly
possible to describe how the Taviani brothers divide their tasks during
shooting. While presenting the "Padre Padrone" in Cannes, one of them,
responding to questions from journalists, delivers a humorous
explanation: "We are like cappuccino ... It's hard to tell where the
coffee ends and where the milk begins!”
In 1987 Paolo and
Vittorio leave shortly from Italy to USA to shoot Good Morning Babylon,
satirical and energetic mural of Hollywood society from the time of
Griffith. As big fan of the Pirandello’s work, Taviani brothers screened
many of his stories in both parts of the film Chaos (1984 and 1998).
Among the actors they have worked with are Marcello Mastroianni,
Isabella Rossellini, Nanni Moretti, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Isabelle
Huppert, Michele Placido, Leticia Casta, Paz Vega. Their penultimate
film The Lark Farm (2007) was shot in Bulgaria, with the participation
of famous Bulgarian artists and tells the story of an Armenian family in
Turkey during the 1915.
"Sometimes they wonder why we do movies.
The answer is – in the name of love, to love and be loved by people who
we do not know, and that will probably never meet”, admits Paolo, and
Vittorio addds to this: “Cinema is my life, because without it I would
be only a ghost and the relationships I have with other people would
have dissolve in the mist”.
Fiction-documentary Caesar Must Die
(2012) is the latest film by Taviani brothers, which won the "Golden
Bear" at Berlinale 2012 and the Italian film award "David of Donatello."
The rehearsals and performance of the play "Julius Caesar" by
Shakespeare, played by prisoners with long sentences in prison Rebibiya
in Rome, is the foundation of this concentrated, intense and powerful
drama ... The film will be presented at the formal gala of the Italian
film within the framework of Sofia Film Fest 2013 by the director Paolo
Taviani and his wife Lina Neri Taviani – special guests at the 17th
edition of the festival.