FRITZ LANG FESTIVAL

The Bif&st will tribute a major retrospective to the great Austro-Ungaric Author Fritz Lang, born in Vienna December 5th, 1890 and emigrated in France in 1933 and in the States in 1934, forced to run away from the Nazi regime, after having realized his first masterpieces in Germany. The retrospective, which will feature almost the entire opus of Lang’s both European and American movies, will be curated by Felice Laudadio and by director and critic Carlo di Carlo, in cooperation with Teche RAI, the National Film Library and the Bologna Film Library.
Considered “the symbol itself of Cinema” (by Jean-Luc Godard), and “the greatest master of German Cinema” (by Sandro Bernardi), between 1919 and 1960 Fritz Lang shot 15 silent films (the first two of which are lost) and 27 sound movies. He went through the melò, the feuilleton adventure, the moral story, the legend, the sci-fy, the spy story, the almost-psychoanalitical crime-drama, the musical, the comedy, the social tale, the western, the standoff or war drama; and “his poliedric personality and the complexity of his opus make it impossible to catalogue such director under any label” (Lotte Eisner). “Fritz Lang’s style in one word? Relentless” – says François Truffaut – “each and every framing, every camera movement, every change of an actor’s position – every gesture has something defining and inimitable.”
In addition to the forementioned movies, Francesca Maria Cadin, Orsetta Gregoretti and Patrizia Prosperi, in cooperation with RAI Teche, are researching among documentary materials over the entire opus of Fritz Lang.

The Fritz Lang Festival – comprising his movies and others which have been inspired by Metropolis – features 48 films, plus documentary materials, and will be held at the Multicinema Galleria of Bari; 21st to 28th March, 2015. It will be an unprecedented full immersion in the work of one of the greatest protagonists of the History of World Cinema.