Matera, Patellani on the set of “La Lupa”

Matera, Patellani on the set of "La Lupa"

Patellani on the set of "La Lupa", a photographer among the Sassi of Matera. 

Until yesterday, January 15th, hosted in the Oberdan space, Milan.

From Saturday 20 January 2018, until 1 March 2008, the exhibition returns to Matera.

For the seventy years of the Italian Film Library, a photographic exhibition was chosen that recalls one of the less popular films of its co-founder Alberto Lattuada, "La lupa".

But, nevertheless, it will also allow the users to (re) discover the genius of one of its greatest photographers, Federico Patellani, who was one of the great protagonists of the post-war Italian cinema. The two, the director and the photojournalist, were friends and frequented, but they never had the chance to work together. The occasion was the project of a film that Carlo Ponti entrusted to Lattuada for fear that Clemente Fracassi would end up falling into the trap of censorship. In fact, it was a matter of bringing Verga's "La Lupa" to the screen, a story of passion and jealousy between a mother and a daughter competing for the same man.

La Lupa ... in Matera

The story was set in Sicily, but Lattuada suggested Matera: those "landscapes of hard, terrible beauty ... The ideal place to set a story of passion like that: those chasms that seemed to open wide under the feet of the characters ... ... Matera was hell on earth. And he called Patellani for a first inspection. Even the photographer was impressed by the city of Lucania.

Until yesterday, the exhibition could be admired in the foyer of the Oberdan space.

The exhibition in Matera

Saturday, January 20, at 18.00, at the Cinema Il Piccolo di Matera and, later, at the municipal premises of the former Convent of Santa Lucia al Piano.

The exhibition "Matera 1953 - La Lupa: the film by Alberto Lattuada, photos by Federico Patellani" will be inaugurated here. Show accompanied in the period from 20 January to 1 March 2018 from a review dedicated to 5 masterpieces of Lattuada.

The inauguration of the film La Lupa will be presented by the Mayor of Matera, Raffaello de Ruggeri. Then again: the director of the Fondazione Cineteca Italiana Matteo Pavesi, the film critic Alberto Crespi and the Responsible Planning Culture and Cinema of the Municipality of Matera Ivan Moliterni.

Produced by the Municipality of Matera in collaboration with the Fondazione Cineteca Italiana, the exhibition arrives in Matera after the Milanese stage. It exhibits about fifty photographs digitally restored by Federico Patellani in 1953, during the shooting of the film La lupa, in the still inhabited Sassi districts.