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An “ironic visual reportage” of four artist projects at the L’Attico gallery in Rome, 1968. Patella infuses the work of the artists from the arte povera movement with touches of surrealism, as tinted monochromatic footage of these exhibitions/actions lends them a silent film aesthetic. The title refers to the last names of the main players: gallery owner Fabio Sargentini and artists Jannis Kounellis, Eliseo Mattiacci, Pino Pascali and Luca Maria Patella himself. Kounellis is shown using the gallery as a studio, dying bits of cloth among live animals; Mattiacci engages passerby in a happening on the city streets; Patella and Rosa Foschi are shown in a similar scenario to Terra Animata, with a flag performance in a landscape; and Pascali executes a bizarre ritual on the beach, covered to his neck in sand and later planting whole loaves of bread.
Director
Status
Released
Original Language
IT
In a small suburb on the outskirts of Rome, the cheerful heat of summer camouflages a stifling atmosphere of alienation. From a distance, the families seem normal, but it’s an illusion: in the houses, courtyards and gardens, silence shrouds the subtle sadism of the fathers, the passivity of the mothers and the guilty indifference of adults. But it’s the desperation and repressed rage of the children that will explode and cut through this grotesque façade, with devastating consequences for the entire community.
