STORY OF B
The disappearance of my mother
A film by
Beniamino Barrese
Lenght: 75’ (52’)
Format: HD + 16mm
Language: Italian, English (subtitled)
Productiom: NANOF, Roma (IT)
www.nanof.it
Filippo Macelloni
email: [email protected]
tel. +39.3465042304
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SYNOPSIS
Everything that truly matters, is always invisible.
Benedetta Barzini
Iconic top model in New York in the 1960s, voice of the
Italian feminist movement in the 1970s, single mother of
four, writer and university professor, Benedetta Barzini
–a muse to Richard Avedon, Irving Pen, Andy Warhol and
Salvador Dali among others– now, at 73, leads a simple
and solitary life in Milan. Still approached for photographic
campaigns, reluctant guest in exclusive evenings, invited to
the catwalk of important designers for dedicated cameos –
she continues to be a prominent figure of the Italian fashion
scene. At the same time, she runs a last course in Fashion
Anthropology at the New Academy of Arts, teaching her
students how to interpret the language of beauty and how
to understand the power structures behind the clothes we
wear. Despite her fame, Benedetta’s private life is cluttered
with uncertainty. Tired of family conflicts and financial
problems, she carefully plans a radical exit strategy: leave
everything behind and disappear to a far-away island to
complete her life in solitude and isolation.
Concerned for her well being, Benedetta’s son –
photographer and cinematographer Beniamino Barrese–
returns home, after several years abroad, with the intention
of making a film about her. Wishing to know her better and
deeper and to understand the reasons for her self-imposed
exiles, he mixes between her students to attend and film
her last lectures, compiles home movie (between them,
the mini-dvs he shot with her as a kid and teenager) and
gathers the multifaceted archives from Benedetta’s career:
TV interviews, fashion editorials, press articles, books. He
travels to New York, reaching to people who met her when
she was a model: among them, Warhol’s assistant, Gerard
Malanga, who loved Benedetta so much that he dedicated a
vast collection of poems in her name. Thanks to the help of
an established fashion journalist who agrees to be a partner
in his quest, he interviews key figures that shaped the world
of fashion (including designers Giorgio Armani, Antonio
Marras, Miuccia Prada, fashion editor Anna Wintour,
photographers Gian Paolo Barbieri, Peter Lindbergh, David
Bailey, former models Lauren Hutton and Veruschka)
involving them in a discussion over the themes and issues
that, by reflecting on her own life experience, Benedetta
developed into a fully fledged philosophy.
As quickly getting lost in a multitude of scattered
fragments, Beniamino’s investigation becomes an
opportunity to confront his own obsession with beauty and
images and question their power and meaning in a society
overexposed, and overruled, by advertising and social
medias. However, Benedetta stubbornly resists her son’s
efforts, progressively twisting the relationship between
mother and son into an obstacle course where both try
to help and hinder each other in an attempt to finalize a
separation strategy before it’s too late.
TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/189073011
PW: Respiro
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DIRECTOR’S NOTE
There are two intertwined stories in this film: the first is that
of an aging icon of beauty determined to be true to her
convictions to the very end; the second is my story –that of
a son that uses filmmaking as a tool to process the burden of
a larger-than-life mother.
Because our intentions openly clash, this project
has become a battlefield between my mother and me.
While she wants to disappear, I am trying to appear, defining
my identity outside and against her shadows and lights.
Our battle is mediated by a lens. And this is not a chance:
ultimately, we are also standing for opposing conceptions
of what images and visual language mean, and what purpose
they serve.
Because of her life experience –that of a silent
muse, who inspired legendary artists but never managed to
be fully appreciated for her own invisible talents and mind–,
Benedetta developed a peculiar ‘rage against the images’.
To her, images are detrimental and even dangerous, as
they manipulate people to buy or believe, preventing them
to experience their lives directly. When people get use to
just look at the surface, they forget that down below there
is a deeper, more complex reality. “Everything that truly
matters, is always invisible”, my mum often repeats.
I understand her remarks and of course I appreciate
were she is coming from. Plus, it is undeniable: visual
language has gained an overriding power, which is making
us illiterate to words and even emotions. My generation
often has more pleasure in photographing and sharing an
edited version of reality on their online diaries rather than
actually living through the moment. But if that’s true, it is
only by regaining control over the visual realm that we can
walk our way back to ourselves. As a photographer, DoP and
filmmaker, I want to believe that –when well used– images
can still work as a way to distill meanings from the chaos of
everyday life and to preserve memory from the unresting
passing of time. Without falling into a dangerous nostalgia,
a comprehension of the past is key to be conscious and
autonomous individuals, grounded in the present. And, even
if I recognize that beauty –once agate to the divine, today
mainly tool for selling useless goods– is a distraction that
chained women to their looks, nonetheless I am convinced
that it is also our best chance to enlarge our spirits, engage
with nature and with the world around us in a creative and
positive way.
This complex matter of life and thoughts is in a way
the inheritance that my mother is leaving to me. Making this
film is my way to make the best out of it, using our story
to explore themes that are at the same time intimate and
political, personal and universal. Deciding to work on this
project is at the same time an act of love and an act of
betrayal. An act of love, because it stems from my wish to
portray and understand what I most love and fear to lose.
An act of betrayal, because as I observe my mother and
cautiously delve into her life’s open questions, I am doing
exactly what she hates the most: I use her as a muse, a silent
object of inspiration to satisfy my need to tell a story.
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VISUAL TREATMENT
Playing with the legendary aura that covers
Benedetta’s past and the mystery that surrounds her future,
the film mixes temporal plans, merging documentary and
fictions, detached observation and subjective narration,
intimate and political themes.
The McGaffin and engine of the story is Beniamino’s
investigation on the reasons behind his mother’s raging
sufferance and resignation. The backbone of the film is
an observation of Benedetta’s present, showing her last
university lectures and exams, as well as the lonely times
she spends in her small studio in Milan, the mundane fashion
events she attends as an unpredictable (and out of context)
guest star and the gradual preparation of her disappearing
plan. This part draws a major influence from the documentary
works of Gianfranco Rosi and Michael Glawogger.
As the audience witness Benedetta’s present,
her past progressively emerges through the montage of
archives, original footage shot in New York by Beniamino,
audio and video from original and archival interviews. A
mixture of TV interviews from the 1960s up to today and a
long interview conducted as a private conversation between
mother and son helps transitioning through different
frames of Benedetta’s public life: the modeling career,
the times she worked for the UDI (Unione Donne Italiane,
the league of Italian Women) and fought within the ranks
of the feminist movement, the days when her brother, the
publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, was mysteriously found
killed in 1972– and so on. Beniamino will have her students
reading key pages from her books, and Gerard Malanga read
some of the poems he wrote for her. Protagonists of the
fashion world will also be interviewed, as well as old friends
of Benedetta from Washington and New York, to reveal
unexpected elements of Benedetta’s youth. Beniamino’s
approach to this section is impressionistic; there is no clear
border between past and present. Much inspiration for this
section has been taken from Patricio Guzman’s Nostalgia for
the light, and from Sarah Polley’s Stories we tell.
The last and most subjective part of the story
has to do with Beniamino’s intimate point of view on his
mother. Intertwining fiction and documentary, he retraces
the dynamics of their evolving relationship –from mutual
dependency to breaking apart– and defines his interpretation
of her personal life’s journey: that of silent muse who never
managed to be listened for her own voice, a woman who
owes her success to her beauty but was never understood
and seen for what she actually was –a philosopher, a talented
author, an intellectual. For this section, which grows with
suspense and expectation almost like a thriller, Beniamino
uses footage that he shot growing up, as well as other
home movies, including tapes shot by director Roberto
Faenza, Benedetta’s first husband, in the 1970s. Beniamino
will also film fiction scenes, recreating memories from the
past, as well as dramatizing Benedetta’s final farewell to
society. Her fiction book Storia di una passione senza corpo
(which revolves around the destiny of many young and old
models), will be used as a guideline for scripting some of
these scenes, very much like a stream of consciousness that
speaks straight from the buried and hidden inner world of
Benedetta. This section is heavily informed by Alessandro
Comodin’s The summer of Giacomo and Pete Middleton and
James Spinney’s Notes on blindness, but references also Wim
Wender’s use of inner monologues in Wings of desire.
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PRODUCTION NOTES
Beniamino started filming Benedetta when he was a
teenager following her with a mini dv camera. In a way, this
film has been for twenty years in the making – but what
made him realise the importance of making a film was when
in 2012 he attended one of her lectures for the first time.
Since then he started writing and preparing the idea of the
project.
Despite her uneasiness with the camera, Benedetta
agreed finally to be part of the film. Principal photography
started in 2016.
In 2015 Story of B - The disappearance of my mother
was between the 10 selected projects to attend European
developing scheme Archidoc, organised by La Femis with
the support of Creative Europe - MEDIA . Thanks to the six
months writing/pitching work and the feedbacks received
by the tutors and the other European directors involved in
the program, Beniamino widely expanded the scope of the
story, exploring and developing its international potential.
From February to June 2016 we filmed Benedetta’s
last university lectures and exams, as well as a small 16 mm
sequence with an actress playing Benedetta as a young girl,
as a sample and test for the fiction elements of the story.
All of these different materials have been used to cut a
promotional teaser.
In January 2017 the project was granted the MIBACT
(Italian Ministry of Culture) fund, has received consistent
fundings from private investors and consequently RAI
CINEMA entered as a production partner.
During the last 12 months we have been researching
in different archive libraries and collected a list of relevant
research materials. We have been granted full access to
the usage of photos and videos from the private archive
collections of several fashion brands and photographers. We
are in contact with key-fashion brands and photographers,
who gave us their consent to be interviewed for the
documentary (among others fashion designers Giorgio
Armani and Antonio Marras, photographers Gian Paolo
Barbieri and Peter Lindbergh, poet and ex Barzini lover
Gerard Malanga). We have access to the archives of the
Italian Public Broadcasting Company, RAI, thanks to the
agreement with RAI CINEMA.
We have successfully took part to the pitching
session of the Thessaloniki Doc Festival and to MIA market
in Rome. Some international broadcasters showed their
interest in the project and a couple of them (the Canadian
ICI RDI and the Greek ERT) offered us a pre-buy.
The production plan include 2-3 weeks of shooting
in Italy and one week in USA between March and May 2017.
At the end of April 2017 we will attend the Toronto HotDocs
as part of the Italian delegation. Editing is planned to start in
June 2017 and final delivery by December 2107.
We are looking for other financial partners and
international distributors and broadcasters.
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Benedetta Barzini (centre) con Miuccia Prada (left) e her daughter Caterina.
Milan 1977.
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Beniamino Barrese - director
Beniamino graduated in Philosophy at Statale di Milano,
International Political Economy at King’s College London and
cinematography at the National Film and Television School
in Beaconsfield, UK. Since 2011 he worked as DoP and
photographer, realising feature fiction and documentaries,
commercials, music promos and short films. Some of the
films he photograhed were screeened and awared in film
festivals worldwide. Story of B. The disappearance of my
mother is his first feature lenght film as a director.
https://vimeo.com/30420934
beniaminobarrese.tumblr.com
Nanof - production (IT)
NANOF is an independent production company based
in Rome, founded by filmmakers Filippo Macelloni
and Lorenzo Garzella. Since 2001, NANOF produced
documentaries, short films, installations and television
projects. Thanks to its extensive network of contacts
in Italy and abroad, it also collaborated on a number
of national and international films as a of co-producer
or exectutive producer. Its editorial line is centred on
global interest, social and current affairs, culture and
art issues destined to a wide audience.
http://www.nanof.it/
Miafilm - production (UK)
MIAFILM is a London-based production company
founded by film-makers Caterina Monzani and Sergio
Vega Borrego in 2010. Since then, MIAFILM has been
focussing on producing documentaries, fictions shorts
and online films. It also acted as co-producer on a
number of projects, including the MEDIA founded The
perfect cirle, by Italian director Claudia Tosi.
www.miafilm.com
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With the support of:
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