AVÊÓƵ

Dr Ambra Moroncini In Conversation with Mario Martone

Dr Ambra Moroncini’s interview with Italian filmmaker Mario Martone, held at the AVÊÓƵ, has recently been published in the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies.

The article 'Cinema, literature and looking at the world from Naples', just published in the journal, 12:4 (2024), pp. 599-612, presents the accurate transcription of an engaging conversation Dr Ambra Moroncini (School of Media, Arts and Humanities) held with the filmmaker on campus on 8 December 2023.

By discussing the inspiration behind some of his most successful films – specifically L’amore molesto (Troubling Love) (1995), Il giovane favoloso (Leopardi) (2014), Nostalgia (2022) and the docufilm Laggiù qualcuno mi ama (Massimo Troisi: Somedody Down There Likes Me) (2023) – the reader will feel captivatingly guided by Martone into the fascinating relationship between cinema and literature, and on the difficulties of love as ‘a longing that drives us all’. The role that the cultural milieu of Martone’s birthplace, Naples, had in his career and artistic creativity will also help to understand both the realistic and mythological dimensions of his cinema.

Dr Moroncini gratefully acknowledges the generous support received by Media, Arts and Humanities Research, by the Italian Cultural Institute in London, by the Society for Italian Studies in Britain and Ireland, and by several colleagues, particularly Prof Guido Bonsaver (University of Oxford), Prof Darrow Schecter (AVÊÓƵ), Dr Aaron Kahn (AVÊÓƵ), Dr Malcolm James, Marco Nardi (AVÊÓƵ), Dr John Walker (AVÊÓƵ), and Dr Frank Brouwer (AVÊÓƵ), for contributing to recognise the originality of one the most important cultural voices in Italy today, whose cinematic strategies have allowed literature to be ‘viewed’, as well as read.

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