The cinema of Ottavio Mai
precursor and promoter of homosexual cinema and themes in Italy
All films from the retrospective will be online from November 9th monthly subscription (€6,50), in review (€5,50 for 15 days of viewing) and, where specified, on demand (€2,80 for 72 hours)
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Octavio Mario Mai
Life, art, political and entrepreneurial commitment merge in the figure of Ottavio Mario Mai, exactly as in the postmodern society whose potential and characteristics Mai seems to have intuited and exploited before others.
Pride 80
The footage of the first Pride in Italy, in 1980, organized by Fuori!
From Piero's life
Piero is 26 years old, works in a butcher's shop, lives with his mother and sister, and has been engaged to Tiziana for years.
Something's wrong in his life, his mother senses, and their relationship is strained. One day, however, Piero meets Mirco, and his ideas begin to clear up.
Message
When a love story begins, differences, negative character traits, personal needs, are sacrificed on the altar of love....
I'm not like you
“If you meet me, pretend you don’t know me,” “I’m not like you,” are now classic phrases in “furtive and veiled” homosexual relationships.
INFECTED BY EVIL
“Man is projected towards the stars, the landing on Mars is imminent, the fifth-generation computer, the intelligent one, is almost ready... and yet, and yet today one can still die because of homosexual prejudice.”
Beware of truck drivers
The figure of the truck driver now represents in the collective imagination the stereotype of the crude and virile male.
The prey
Each of us, sentimentally speaking, has happened at least once in our lives to be either the hunter or the prey, perhaps even without knowing it.
I will never be more alive than this
Through reading some of Sandro Penna's poems, a boy, as if by magic, visually "relives" some of them, almost as if he himself were the Poet.
Prelude
Enza, a middle-aged widow, lives with her only daughter.
Her friends Mariangela, Marida, Luisa, and Renata are worried about her because she didn't show up to their usual meeting.
She doesn't answer the phone, so they decide to go straight home, the doorbell rings almost continuously until Enza opens.
The staticity of a body
Is it possible to apply the First Law of Dynamics to the Internal Motion of a Human Body? "Every body persists in its state of rest or of uniform rectilinear motion unless it is constrained by any force applied to it."
The Motions, the Dynamics, of a teacher for her young student.
Tea for two
“It is only an alternation of energy that is at work here” is the inscription visible on a man’s grave where another man can be seen lying down.
Epitaphs
A mother with a small bank account and a pessimistic view of the future of humanity.
The desire for a beautiful funeral and a son who is “too” optimistic and interested in redeeming her.
From Sodom to Hollywood - (the festival of vice)
Told, experienced and "imagined", even ironically, by the protagonists, the story of "From Sodom to Hollywood", the Film Festival with Homosexual Themes.
Partners
Generally, each of us dreams of an ideal partner with whom we can peacefully spend at least part of our lives. Unfortunately, this dream doesn't often come true, beyond the confines of literature, films, songs, and so on.
Fiction
“It is a difficult task to achieve existential balance, and sometimes it is not a given that one succeeds.
The "cool" of the regime
Giò Stajano's secret to facing life in the best way, or worst, depending on your point of view, was and is that of never taking himself too seriously.
Orpheus, the day before
The hell of Orpheus, the contemporary hero, awaiting an announced death in the knowledge that he can no longer accumulate memories.
Synopsis
November 8, 2022 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Octavio Mai, director, screenwriter, poet, activist of FUORI!, and founder, together with his companion John Minerba of "From Sodom to Hollywood" (today Lovers), Europe's oldest LGBTQ+-themed festival.
November 8th with the documentary Octavio Mario Mai (2002) by Alessandro Golinelli and Giovanni Minerba, on the eclectic figure of Ottavio Mai, Streeen A large retrospective opens dedicated to the first person in Italy to understand the social and political urgency of the representation of homosexual, lesbian, and transgender people in the media.
The documentary, through the testimonies of, among others, Ida Di Benedetto, Leo Gulotta, Alberto Barbera, Gianni Vattimo, Angelo Pezzana he gives us back his life balanced between art, political and entrepreneurial commitment.
18 films, directed or produced by Ottavio Mai and Giovanni Minerba, which represent a piece of Italian cinema history, in their pioneering attempt to give visibility to a community still seeking recognition and rights.
From documentary to traditional fiction, from poetic shorts to experimental films, they speak directly, without mediation, about gays, trans people, couples, families, betrayals, and "homosexual normality," crossing all genres, as no one had ever dared before in Italy.
The cinema of Ottavio Mai and Giovanni Minerba has virtually no Italian precedent. It harks back to a tradition of cinema that was more politically engaged and much more visible on the theme of homosexuality than Italian cinema of the time. Mai and Minerba were the first to address the issue of narrative and to understand, as filmmakers and activists alike, that demonstrations and debates are one thing, the widespread social presence of homosexuality is another, and its representation, which allows for unparalleled identification and power, is quite another.
– Ivan Cotroneo
Ottavio and Giovanni's cinema was a breakthrough, one that consistently defied conventions and expectations, one that reinvented style time and time again. It's the best antidote for those seeking to escape the anesthesia, the laughing gas that the consensus factory liberally dispenses. In this sense, watching a film by L'Altra Comunicazione (and probably making one) is always an experience worth having. Also (perhaps above all) as a political experience that rejects conventions a priori.
- Stefano Della Casa
"Ottavio and Giovanni have finally made video one of the reasons for their lives. Not an extra or a means to achieve something else, not a half-service occupation or the exercise of an instrumental practice. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that for them, the camera was rather an extension of the senses, an extension of their consciousness.".
- Alberto Barbera
Among the titles under review we mention From Piero's life (1982), the first film ever, Message (1982) Infected by evil (1984) Beware of truck drivers (1985) From Sodom to Hollywood (1989) and, produced by Mai and Minerba, Journey to Sodom (1988) by experimental director Tonino de Bernardi.
Octavio Mario Mai (2002) by Alessandro Golinelli and Giovanni Minerba, will be available by subscription (6,50 per month) or on demand (2,80) starting at 18.00 pm on Tuesday 8 November. All other films will be available from 00.00 am on 9 November 2022.
