With six narrative features, five documentaries, and several short films, Vincenzo Marra is one of Italy’s leading writer/directors.
April 18-21, 2018 at Indiana University
At the end of the 1990s, he wrote and directed two shorts, Una rosa prego and La vestizione. His narrative feature debut, Tornando a casa (Sailing Home) won the director several awards at international film festivals in 2001 and was nominated for Best First Feature at the Italian Golden Globes. His second feature, Vento di terra (Land Wind) won the FIPRESCI prize at the 2004 Venice Film Festival. In 2005, he participated in the Locarno Film Festival in the video category with a documentary about Palestine entitled 58%. In 2006 he released the documentary L´udienza è aperta (The Hearing is Open), about the Italian criminal justice system, which was another Venice Days selection. In 2007, he returned with the feature film L´ora di punta (The Trial Begins) and in 2012 with the prison documentary Il gemello (The Triplet). The Rome International Film Festival honored his work by presenting a mid-career retrospective in 2013.
Marra’s most recent film, L’equilibrio (Equilibrium. 2017), was also a Venice Days selection and returned to the verité style of Vento di terra. His films often offer an extraordinary slice of life in the city of Naples, Marra’s hometown, portraying the experiences of ordinary people poised between disillusion and hope.
This symposium and film series is sponsored by:
The College of Arts