The object of this lecture will be to find out how great filmmakers built their film universes...
“Cinema does not just present images, it surrounds them with a world… What the artist is, actually, is a creator of truth, because truth should not be reached, or found, or duplicated; truth should be invented.” – Gilles Deleuze
“You know, what we, professional liars, hope to serve is truth – I am afraid the pompous word for it is art. Picasso himself said it: ‘Art,’ he said, ‘is a lie that makes us realise the truth.’” – Orson Welles in ‘F for Fake’
When we buy a ticket for a film, we do something very important: we make a pact with the filmmaker. On our side, we accept to enter the world they create for us, not questioning its rules, and granting, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge described it, “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith.” In return, we expect the director to uphold their end of the contract by creating a consistent world that, for the length of the film, will be one we inhabit and believe in.
The object of this lecture will be to find out how such great filmmakers as Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Christopher Nolan and Andrei Tarkovsky, among others, built their film universes – and to discover the pearls they have hidden inside them.
*Location: Katara Drama Theatre, Building 16*
*Language: English*
*Free: first-come, first-served*
*Teresa Cavina* is an Italian festival programmer, script analyst and co-production expert. From 1989 to 1997, she was a programmer at the Venice International Film Festival, and in 1998, she moved to the Festival del Film Locarno, which she co-directed from 2001 through 2005. In 2006, she launched the Rome Film Festival, where she was artistic director until 2008. In Rome, she founded the New Cinema Network, an international co-production platform featuring training and support for second-time filmmakers. From 2009 to 2012, Cavina was the artistic director of the Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels (FIPA), and programming director of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival from 2009 to 2014, where she co-created Sanad, a fund that provided support to Arab filmmakers and films relevant to Arab culture and heritage. Currently, she focuses on working closely with filmmakers, producers, script labs and funding bodies, including Premiosolinas (Italy), AFAC (Lebanon) and HAF (Hong Kong). Cavina is also on the reading team for Eurimages.
*Teresa Cavina* is an Italian festival programmer, script analyst and co-production expert. From 1989 to 1997, she was a programmer at the Venice International Film Festival, and in 1998, she moved to the Festival del Film Locarno, which she co-directed from 2001 through 2005. In 2006, she launched the Rome Film Festival, where she was artistic director until 2008. In Rome, she founded the New Cinema Network, an international co-production platform featuring training and support for second-time filmmakers. From 2009 to 2012, Cavina was the artistic director of the Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels (FIPA), and programming director of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival from 2009 to 2014, where she co-created Sanad, a fund that provided support to Arab filmmakers and films relevant to Arab culture and heritage. Currently, she focuses on working closely with filmmakers, producers, script labs and funding bodies, including Premiosolinas (Italy), AFAC (Lebanon) and HAF (Hong Kong). Cavina is also on the reading team for Eurimages.