(by Alessandra Magliaro)
Venice Film Festival attendees
this year are looking forward to the premiere of Italy In a Day,
a "collective cinema experiment" put together by Italian
Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Gabriele Salvatores.
The Naples-born director asked Italians to film their daily
lives on October 26, 2013, and send him the results.
"Tell us who you are, what you love, what you fear," he
says on his Italy in a Day website.
"We will put together a selection and come up with a
photograph of Italy as seen by Italians".
The response was overwhelming.
A whopping 44,197 amateur filmmakers, from youngsters to
80-year-olds, from astronauts to felons in a maximum-security
prison, from doctors to mobsters turned State's witnesses, as
well as many second-generation immigrants - the so-called G2,
who are Italian in everything but citizenship status - turned in
their home-made cinematic efforts.
The footage was shot on cell phones and uploaded using a
special app, Italy in a Day, created for the occasion.
"This was a very interesting, exciting and instructive
experiment," said Salvatores of his project, which is based on
Life in a Day by Tony and Ridley Scott.
The latter was shot by people around the world on July 24,
2010.
The Scott brothers edited together a 94-minute feature with
scenes selected from 4,500 hours of footage in 80,000
submissions from 192 countries.
Italy in a day, which is co-produced by RAI Cinema and Tony
and Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions, is still an open
project and will be developed further, according to producers.
"This is Italy's first ever audio-visual census," one of
the producers told ANSA.
"The material we received was rich and powerful, moving and
exciting. It measures the emotional temperature of the country".
Screening on September 2 out of competition, the 76-minute
feature captures "an ailing Italy, but one that is creative and
full of energy," the producers said.
Italy in a Day premieres at the Venice Film Festival,
screening out of competition on September 2.
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