Michele Mellara, Alessandro Rossi / Live music by Massimo Zamboni / Italia / 2023 / 50’

A re-edited film, a Berlinguer who appears present, intense, human, capable of carefully chosen and profound words, both participated and participant. A portrait – specifically intended for those who did not get to know him politically and historically – that speaks of his political and social stature, updating it, recalling his absence without excessive nostalgia.

L’addio a Enrico Berlinguer, a collective film about his funerals with contributions from some of the most important names of Italian cinematography (tra gli altri: Bernardo e Giuseppe Bertolucci, Silvano Agosti, Roberto Benigni, Carlo Lizzani, Luigi Magni, Giuliano Montaldo, Ettore Scola, Gillo Pontecorvo, Francesco Maselli, Ugo Gregoretti) is here reassembled and re-imagined, bringin it up to date. A film that talks about the warm and strong connection that Berlinguer had with the people. In this new edition, which contains a lot of previously unseen material from the AAMOD (Archive of the workers and democratic movement),Berlinguer talks about the founding themes of his politics, and he does so by arguing his theses in a direct way, with adamant clarity and a solidity of political intentions that result from years of study, commitment, militancy, reflection on the tasks and duties of politics. The humanity of Berlinguer’s character restores dignity, integrity and strength to politics. A montage film that looks ahead, not looking to celebrate but to give ideas: to reflect, and rediscover our near past that seems to have evaporated in a cloud of stunned forgetfulness, to rethink politics, to understand what it means to be political and to live politics as a community and as an individual: an urgency that is all the more necessary today.

Editing and Color correction Corrado Iuvara
Editing assistant Ilaria Cimmino
Music Massimo Zamboni
live by Massimo Zamboni (voice and guitars), Erik Montanari (guitars and chorus), Cristiano Roversi (piano, synth, programming, bass)
Production AAMOD – Audiovisual Archive of the Democratic and Labour Movement, Pordenone Docs Fest, Cinemazero
In partnership with Mammut Film
Concept Riccardo Costantini, Luca Ricciardi
Executive producer Ilaria Malagutti
Archive AAMOD – Audiovisual Archive of the Democratic and Labour Movement
Archive reasearch Claudio Olivieri
Archive editing Milena Fiore, Alessandro Mazzucca
Grafic Testi Manifesti (Marco Petrucci)

Notes
by Michele Mellara e Alessandro Rossi
We tell Berlinguer’s story starting from the great popular participation at his funeral.
The backbone of our film consists of “L ‘addio a Enrico Berlinguer”, a choral film about his funerals made by many of the best personalities of Italian cinematography, among others: Bernardo and Giuseppe Bertolucci, Silvano Agosti, Roberto Benigni, Carlo Lizzani, Luigi Magni, Giuliano Montaldo, Ettore Scola, Gillo Pontecorvo. We tried to reduce the celebratory/liturgical feeling of the original film inspired by those times and to privilege the warm and lively human relationship that Berlinguer managed to have with the popular masses.
In our new editing we have inserted the living Berlinguer to intersperse the extended times of the long ceremony. We made a careful selection of a series of films made available by the AAMOD (Archive of the workers and democratic movement) in which the affection and participation of the people towards its leader is shown, in a symbiotic relationship made up of encounters that cemented the relationship over time. We have chosen specific moments in which Berlinguer pitches the fundamental themes of his politics, and he does so by arguing his theses in a direct way, with an adamantine clarity and a solidity of political intentions resulting from years of study, commitment, militancy, reflection on the tasks and duties of politics. We chose the speeches on topics that seemed close to today (generations, women, family, moral issues, work) and on which Berlinguer had words that are still extremely topical and that continue to make us reflect.
The humanity of Berlinguer’s figure restores dignity, integrity and strength to politics.
Who was Berlinguer? Younger people don’t know, or at least most of them don’t. Perhaps this film might help them to get closer to him, to make him alive: a man animated by strong political passions, by an unwavering sense of equity, an anti-fascist, a man never tired of fighting against social injustices and the prevarications of the strongest and most powerful.
We must also report here a note on the type of archival materials we have used. The images, shot mainly between the late 1960s and the beginning of the 1980, are mostly on film, made especially during conferences and public rallies in which Berlinguer took part.
It is often an internal archive of the PCI and, since film was expensive and had to be used sparingly, the comrades filmed mainly the official, institutional Berlinguer, leaving little to no space to the private Berlinguer. The leader is always represented – perhaps, sometimes, with a dose of excessive seriousness – in official moments, in the oratorical impetus of a rally, or a meeting with a local chapter militants. The politician is only public image, rigour.
We managed to combine this material from the archives with some private, wamer moments which restore, if only partially, the humanity and fragility of the man.
The editing of the film is designed in an emotional key, which involves the public based on the musical compositions and guitar of Massimo Zamboni: the repetition of the gesture, the crowds, the emotion on the faces of women, politicians, masses of workers, the last/humbles, and heads of state, the raised fists, all this becomes a visual and musical symphony at the same time.
. A montage film that looks ahead, that does not want to celebrate but to give ideas: to reflect, to rediscover our near past that seems to have evaporated in a cloud of stunned forgetfulness, to rethink politics, to understand what it means to be political and live politics as a community and in the first person: an urgency that is all the more necessary today.

Michele Mellara and Alessandro Rossi

Authors, directors, teachers, they have been working together for the past twenty years. They graduated from DAMS in Bologna. Mellara graduated from LIFS (London Film School). After their fiction film, Fortezza Bastiani Fortezza Bastiani (2002), Solinas Award for best screenplay, they began their personal journey in documentary cinema. Among their projects are: Un metro sotto i pesci (2006); Le vie dei farmaci (2007); La febbre del fare (2010); God save the green (2012); I’m in love with my car (2017), Vivere che rischio (2019), 50 – Santarcangelo Festival (2020), which have received awards in Italy and abroad. Their documentaries have been broadcast by television stations in over 50 countries. I loro documentari sono stati trasmessi nel mondo da emittenti televisive di oltre 50 paesi.

Massimo Zamboni

Born in the most leftist province of the leftist Emilia Region, Zamboni was always artistically fascinated by the Sovietic imagery and myth. In 1982, together Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, he founded the CCCP – Fedeli alla Linea, a punk band with a large following and celebrated today in all music history books. A band that called itself “philo-sovietic”, wih a close kinship to Mishima and Majakovsky and Russian Dadaism, they produced “Emilian melodic music” and looked to the East for ethical and aesthetic reasons, as opposed to the prevailing American influence, in those years of wealth and ambitiousness. In the spring of 1989, the CCCP held their final tour in Moscow and Leningrad, after two five-year plans. When the Wall collapsed and the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, CCCP set aside their vehement proclamations and put an end to their artistic project. A few years later, from those ashes arose the CSI (Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti), an acronym that hinted to the newly constituted Confederation of Independent States, which performed across Italy for all the 1990s, reaching the first place in the Italian Hit Parade in 1997. After that experience, Zamboni chose to follow a solo career and produced new albums (Sorella sconfitta, 2004; L’inerme è l’imbattibile, 2008; L’estinzione di un colloquio amoroso, 2010; Una infinita compressione procede lo scoppio, 2013), musiche per il cinema (tra le quali Benzina, 2001; Velocità massima, 2002; L’orizzonte degli eventi, 2005; Terapia d’urto, 2006, Il mio paese, 2006; God Save The Green, 2012, Il nemico. Un breviario partigiano, 2015) e il teatro (La detestata soglia, 2010; Biglietti da camere separate, 2011), but above all he became a writer, and published seven books In Mongolia retromarcia, Giunti, 2000; Emilia parabolica, Fandango, 2002; Il mio primo dopoguerra, Mondadori, 2005; L’eco di uno sparo, Einaudi, 2015; Anime galleggianti, La nave di Teseo, 2016, Nessuna voce dentro, Einaudi 2017, La Trionferà, Einaudi 2021.