La dolce cinema
MANILA, Philippines - She plays Mina Harker (or Murray) in Italian master of horror Dario Argento’s remake of Dracula in, mind you, 3D. And she’s beautiful as hell.
It could get creepy on the set of an Argento film, but 20-year-old Italian actress Marta Gastini admits she’d rather shoot horror movies than watch one. “You feel secure,” she says with a smile. “But I’m learning how to enjoy watching horror movies now.” Marta was great as the pregnant girl possessed by the devil and rescued by Father Hannibal Lecter, er, a priest played by Anthony Hopkins in The Rite. That movie was a letdown, but Marta Gastini’s performance was riveting. She’s slated to appear in more projects outside of Italy.
These are exciting times for Italian cinema, contrary to what the doom-saying armchair critics are saying. And proof of this is the success of “Moviemov: Italian Cinema Now” festival at the Greenbelt 3 cinemas
According to Nedy Tantoco — president of the Philippines Italian Association, one of the organizations behind the film festival — “Italy is universally accepted for its contribution to music, art and, especially, cinema.” She adds that Marta and other figures from Italian Cinema are here at Manila Peninsula to talk more about the DNA of Italian Cinema.
One of the must-see films at the festival is Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D.
“At first, Dario doesn’t want to give you directions. He wants you to think about your character,” says Marta. “He was really like a father.”
Actress Stefania Casini, who’s currently a film and documentary director, says working with Argento was quite an experience. By the way, the woman’s résumé is really impressive. Casini worked with Bernardo Bertolucci and Argento (tangled up in barded wire in Suspiria), and she was featured in an Andy Warhol movie, Bad.
“Dario is like a child,” Casini shares. ‘He wants to open the secret the door. And like a child, he’s scared himself, but he wants to see what’s behind the secret door.”
From three-dimensional horror, the festival also offers film that won’t make you cringe in fear from a shadowy bloodsucker named Mr. “D.”
We have films that will make you laugh, producer Camilla Nesbitt will tell you. “We laugh a lot about ourselves. And probably because of the current economic situation, the biggest segment of Italian cinema is comedy.”
Rustan’s president Zenaida Tantoco The comic, the tragic — everything is part of the drama of life for Italian cineastes.
Actor Ennio Fantastichini explains, “Sometimes cinema is a mirror of not just one city or one people; it depends on the moment. If you’re going to invest in culture or in entertainment, there are two points of view. Sometimes the market is more powerful than the sense of culture. Sometimes you need to reflect more about your life and the cinema could give you a different way to watch your reality.”
Tattooed singer-actress Pietra Montecorvino says something profound. “When you’re depressed, you’re closer to art. When you’re facing the facts of death, you could convey more about art.”
The disheartening can be redemptive. The comical can be comforting. It’s Italian cinema, and it’s a dolce, dolce world entirely.
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“Moviemov” is organized by the Embassy of Italy, the Film Development Council of the Philippines, the Philippine-Italian Association, in cooperation with Rustan’s, The Peninsula Manila, the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), and in collaboration with Asiatica Film Mediale (organizers of the most important Asian Film Festival in Italy) and Playtown (organizers of the Film Festival in Rome).
