There are many reasons that led us, we of the Show
International Film Festival, to remember Gianni Toti,
to pay tribute in this edition of the event
which takes place six months after his disappearance. I want
indicate at least two. First, because John was
an intellectual and a very original artist, who occupied a position along
abnormal and relevant in the Italian cultural panorama
, earning more than
recognition at international level: in fact, with regard to his last
creative experiences, would be more accurate
say that his pioneering work in the field of electronic art is
been better appreciated abroad than in Italy.
addition to this reason, that in itself would be absolutely
enough, I also pointed out that John is
been from the beginning several times, very close to
Pesaro Film Festival. In fact, during the first year,
far in 1965, participates in the Round Table entitled
"Criticism and the new film," and also in two subsequent editions
cooperates with similar conventions, yet focused,
thematically, the film critic and
specificity of film language, keeping you each time a report and making it the only one, together with Pier Paolo Pasolini, to be more actively present. In
thus contributed to the realization and success of an initiative
precisely repeated for three consecutive years and
always characterized by the same objective, to reduce the
apparent gap between the progress of the then "new
cinema "- against which the Pesaro Film Festival
intended to act as a moment of reflection and identification, assessment and promotion of
- backwardness,
theory and practice of discourses on cinema and film.
Then his cooperation became even closer
1968 edition of the Festival, which that year was marked,
for better or for worse (but more than that from this), the
disputed. Gianni
was one of five members of the Selection Committee and during the days
Pesaro its relationship with the student movement, rather diffident
first but then very involved, was to
he was very decisive: so that, as in
after I got to say, somewhat serious and somewhat jokingly
, Pesaro, that year, was for him a sort of
road to Damascus. That still does not
away from the Communist Party which he had written a very young age, when in Rome
military in Resistance, if anything, even more radicalized
his Marxist beliefs details: Gianni
special because he knew
combine orthodoxy and doubt, and not to If the often quoted phrase of the same
Marx "I am not a Marxist." Since then John returned to Pesaro
other times as a spectator and, in
a couple of occasions over the years Nineties, even as the protagonist, that is, as
"Poetronics" (the new word is his) to present some of his videos and
to intervene in other conferences
as a theorist of the new audiovisual languages.
But then again, Gianni Toti, far beyond its contributions and its shares
Pesaro, was a person of the first floor
in different cultural fields;
A person with a multifaceted genius and extraordinary productive capacity
. As well as an insatiable reader and traveler planetary
was a journalist (his memorable items from
Vietnam), novelist, poet, essayist, translator, film critic
, filmmaker, director of a magazine
('secret papers') unique, especially
the rediscovery of literary essays or
Italian and foreign, expert editorial (created and edited the series "The
Pockets"), and , but I am not sure I remembered everything
, videomaker. This activity, which is dedicated
in the last decades of his life with great enthusiasm,
fail to enter, and to unify the call for
experimentation, ideological commitment and a vast cultural background
continuously fed and processed, and
confirmed, even in this area so expressive
unique and different, even working with images and
, a master of logos in the dual sense of
"word" and "reason" on the greek word.
Of everything we want to offer a witness in Pesaro,
projecting some of his videos and discussing his work in a
Roundtable, which brings together his most careful and insightful
interpreters. Which, I am sure, will end
speak to the person, ie, its quality
human, his love for life, the consistency with which he has always lived
his ideas, his sense of friendship,
in short, of all that, along with his own opera, Gianni
reminds us with admiration and gratitude.
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