email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

PEOPLE Italy

Farewell to Carlo Mazzacurati

by 

- After battling severe illness, the successful director of films including Vesna va veloce,La lingua del Santo and La giusta distanza passed away at the age of 57 in Padua. La sedia della felicità will be coming out this spring

Farewell to Carlo Mazzacurati

Director Carlo Mazzacurati passed away the day before last in Padua at the age of 57. He had been battling severe illness for the past few months. Among his most successful films with both critics and audiences were Vesna va veloce (1996), La lingua del santo (2000), The Right Distance [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(2007) and La Passione [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(2010).

His latest film, La sedia della felicità, was presented last November at the Turin Film Festival, where the director received an award for his career (read the news story). Produced by Angelo Barbagallo, the film will be released in cinemas this spring with 01.  “It is perhaps the most comical film I have made,” Mazzacurati said of it. “In my others, there was also sadness, beyond the irony. For once in my life, I wanted to make a film I would want to see as a spectator.”  

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Born in Padua in 1956, Mazzacurati studied at the Dams in Bologna and in 1979 made his first 16mm film, Vagabondi, which in 1983 was awarded at the Milanese Filmmaker Doc festival. In 1987, his first fiction film, Notte Italiana, produced by Nanni Moretti’s Sacher Film, won a Silver Nastro. Two years later, Il prete bello, based on a novel by the same name by Goffredo Parise, won the top prize at the Annecy Film Festival. In 1992, Un'altra vita was presented in Venice. Back in the city just a year later, Mazzacurati was awarded a Golden Lion for Il Toro. In 2010, he made documentary Sei Venezia [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
. Collaborations include work with Daniele Luchetti and Gabriele Salvatores, winning the Solinas award for best screenplay for Marrakech Express.

Italian culture and tourism minister Massimo Bray expressed his condolences yesterday. “Carlo Mazzacurati’s passing has deprived Italian cinema of one of its most original members – one capable of telling the story of his land with intelligence, tracing its precious story and memory before a globalised world.” 

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

(Translated from Italian)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy