Moscow International Film Festival

Programmes


Marco Ferreri. Paradoxes

Big Feast, The // La grande bouffe
Italy / France, 1973, 130 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, Ugo Tognazzi

The grotesquely amusing black comedy about four world-weary men who grow sick of life, and so decide to meet at a remote villa with the goal of literally gorge themselves to death in one final orgiastic weekend of sex and gourmet food. The quartet comes from various walks of life - a pilot, a chef, a television host and a judge – but all are successful men with excessive appetites for life’s pleasures. After the first night, Marcello insists that women should join them. Three prostitutes make it through a day or two; Andrea, a local school teacher, stays to the end.

Future Is Woman, The // Il futuro e donna
Germany / France / Italy, 1984, 102 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Ornella Muti, Hanna Schygulla, Niels Arestrup, Maurizio Donadoni

After Anna and Gordon invite the expecting Malvina to live with them, Anna becomes neurotically jealous and attempts suicide but is thwarted and in the end decides she really wants to be there for the baby when he/she comes into the world. Rather than trying to get rid of Malvina and the baby, both Gordon and Anna are in agreement on keeping it. When Gordon is accidentally killed, Malvina and Anna are left to plan for the future (now the best of friends), though it turns out the baby is destined to have only one mother after all.

Dillinger Is Dead // Dillinger e morto
Italy, 1969, 95 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Michel Piccoli, Anita Pallenberg, Gino Lavagetto, Annie Girardot

Glauco, an industrial designer, returns home from work. His wife is in bed with a headache but has left him dinner, which has become cold. He is dissatisfied with the food and begins preparing himself a gourmet meal. While collecting ingredients he discovers an old revolver wrapped in a 1934 newspaper with the headline «Dillinger is dead» and an account of the famous American gangster’s death. Glauco cleans and restores the gun, then paints it red with white polka dots. He also eats his meal, watches some television and film, listens to music and seduces their maid. When the dawn comes Glauco has an idea how to use a weapon in another way…

Diary of a Maniac // Diario di un vizio
Italy, 1993, 90 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Jerry Cala, Sabrina Ferilli, Valentino Macchi, Laetitia Laneri

Benito keeps a diary or his sexual fantasies and cravings, which, thanks to his on-again, off -again relationship with the beautiful and insatiable Luigia, have grow increasingly bizarre. As his sexual fantasies consume more and more of his life, and grow darker and darker, Benito’s ordinary waking life becomes proportionally flatter and duller, until he disappears altogether...

Ape Woman, The // La donna scimmia
France / Italy, 1964, 96 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Ugo Tognazzi, Annie Girardot, Achille Maieroni, Elvira Paoloni

Antonio, a 40-year-old Neapolitan small-time operator out for the «fast buck» discovers his golden opportunity – a woman named Maria who is normal in all respects except that her face and body are completely covered by hair. Antonio manages to convince the shy, self-conscious girl to leave with him to become a freak attraction as «The Ape Woman», supposedly captured in Africa. The act attains some financial success, but the humiliation is too much for the girl and she returns to the home. Antonio succeeds in getting her back only with a marriage proposal.

Tales of Ordinary Madness // Storie di ordinaria follia
France / Italy, 1981, 108 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Ben Gazzara, Ornella Muti, Susan Tyrrell, Tanya Lopert, Roy Brocksmith

The screen adaptation of Charles Bukowski’s Tales of Ordinary Madness. Bukowski’s alter ego is named here Charles Serking. Half soused, with a 2 a.m. shadow and street urchin rags, Serking waltzes through the scummiest neighborhoods of the City of Angels, soaking up booze, poetry, and copulation, and lounging in flophouses and on grimy public buses. His bedmates are a midget, a string of seedy whores, and various earthy L.A. denizens; he eventually falls for a prostitute who can express her affection only via self-mutilation.

Story of Piera, The // Storia di Piera
France / Germany / Italy, 1983, 109 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Hanna Schygulla, Marcello Mastroianni

The liberated Eugenia, her spaced-out husband - a professor – and their juvenile daughter Piera live in a small provincial Italian town, where Eugenia is noticed as she zooms around on her bicycle and chats up strangers at the train station. While still no more than a grown child, Piera goes with her mother for a threesome when she engages in sexual relations with other men and subsequently suffers both from poor health and the lack of a normal home. The shadow of the future already clouds the household when Eugenia is committed again and again to the psychiatric clinic.

Don't Touch the White Woman! // Touche pas a la femme blanche
Italy / France, 1974, 102 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, Ugo Tognazzi, Paolo Villaggio

Three representatives of the American government sit in a meeting concerning the problem, as they see it, with the Native American situation. The men think there are too many of them, that they are dangerous savages and should be subject to a final solution: mass extermination. They decide to bring in Colonel George Armstrong Custer to provide the project with the boost it needs, and he’s all too happy to be part of what they hope will be a genocide. However, Custer is too big for his boots, and will find eventually the Indian population he and his compatriots despise will be more than a match for them...

Last Woman, The // L'ultima donna
France / Italy, 1976, 112 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Ornella Muti, Michel Piccoli, Renato Salvatori, Zouzou, Nathalie Baye

This movie chronicles the conflict between a man’s romantic urges and the feminist ideal and a custody battle over the man’s young son and has a cataclysmic ending. In the story, Gerard is an engineer who has just been left by his wife for feminist reasons and has custody of his nine-month old son, whom he cares for deeply. When his next romance with Valerie, his son’s daycare worker, threatens that custody, he responds by mutilating himself drastically.

Seeking Asylum // Chiedo asilo
France / Italy, 1979, 112 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Roberto Benigni, Francesca De Sapio, Dominique Laffin, Luca Levi

Social drama about a well-meaning teacher Roberto and his young preschool class. Although his unconventional techniques enthrall his young students, his methods stir controversy among the more traditionally minded parents and school administrators. A trip to a nearby factory enlightens the kids but draws criticism from the parent’s of the children who work there. The concerned teacher is questioned by police when he helps a young five-year-old fiddle player who runs away from home.

Conjugal Bed, The // L'ape regina
France / Italy, 1963, 90 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Ugo Tognazzi, Marina Vlady, Walter Giller, Linda Sini, Riccardo Fellini

A middle-aged car dealer Alfonso marries a young girl and gets more than he bargained for. She is obsessed with getting pregnant pronto. To the end, she keeps him in bed all the time. The poor man simply cannot keep up with her demands. Finally his flagging spirits get the best of him and he goes to the coast to rest. Unfortunately, she shows up. Their love making is so violent that he has a heart attack. While safely recovering in the hospital he finds out that she is at last pregnant. Now that she has what she wanted, she totally ignores him.

Seed of Man, The // Il seme dell'uomo
Italy, 1969, 108 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Marco Margine, Anne Wiazemsky, Annie Girardot, Rada Rassimov

Set in a post-apocalyptic future the film presents a dim view of humanity. Following the devastation of WW III, very few people are left and there is a big push to procreate. The tale begins on a decimated sea shore settlement were a young couple appears. The male wants his woman to have a child, but she, not wanting to bring life to such a terrible place, refuses to submit to his advances. When a different woman comes along she agrees to have his baby and wanting to insure her status tries to kill the first woman.