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Special Programs

Carlo Montanaro – The Factory of Seeing

One of the special programs of the fourteenth edition of the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival has as its guest of honor Carlo Montanaro: writer, journalist, film critic, university professor and one of the world’s leading experts on early cinema. Furthermore, Carlo Montanaro is a member of the scientific committee of our festival, and annually gives us precious special programs dedicated to the origins of the history of cinema.
An eclectic scholar, Montanaro has dedicated his life to dissemination and, like a true archaeologist of cinema, continues to study the founding elements of that possibility of reproducing images that gradually led to the birth of cinematography from the end of the 17th century.
Carlo Montanaro was born in Burano and, after completing his classical studies and graduating in architecture, he devoted himself to cinema, driven by an irreplaceable interest in the expressive and modeling potential of light, which, as he often says, “cancels the fear of the dark”. His dedication and love for cinema are such as to fuel a professional path, which, over the years, allows him to learn and delve into the fascinating recesses of the Seventh Art and to understand its magical pulsations from many different perspectives.
From a young age he has been committed to cultural deepening, collaborating first with the Federazione Italiana Cineforum and then with the Cinit Cineforum Italiano, publishing articles and insights for specialized magazines and for various newspapers, and soon approaches the festival reality. In this field, Montanaro will soon collect a series of noteworthy achievements, such as numerous collaborations at the Venice Film Festival during the Chiarini era, but, above all, he will be one of the founding members of “Le Giornate del Cinema Muto”, the most important festival in the world on cinema that preceded the advent of sound, within which, still today, he is a member of the board of directors and supervises screenings and musical events.
He has no shortage of experience in the field, which he will soon combine with these countless activities: now in the cinematographic field, as assistant director, among others, of Luigi Comencini and Tinto Brass, now in the television field, as author of several Rai programs; in teaching as a teacher and later director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and contractor for the University of Ca’ Foscari; in addition, his commitment to the General Directorate for Cinema of the MIBACT and much more. In short, a fascinating career traced by important academic and institutional roles.

The Factory of Seeing

While it is true that to comprehensively tell the life of Carlo Montanaro, the pages of an entire book or, even better, the minutes of a long film would be needed, it is also true that the main reason why the Ca’ Foscari Short Festival has decided to dedicate one of its special programs to him is mainly linked to his contribution to film archives. This year, in fact, marks the tenth anniversary of the birth of his latest creation: the Factory of Seeing, or the headquarters of the Carlo Montanaro Archive, born in the 1960s out of passion and gradually expanded to include a professional function.

A true workshop of wonders, which turns the clock back decades, to discover that period in the History of Cinema so dear to Carlo Montanaro and which is still capable of arousing amazement today: from pre-cinema to the birth of sound, with specific attention to technology, animated cinema and the avant-garde. In short, a concrete tribute to seeing and to the dazzling inventions that in the past have been able to amplify its horizons. The Fabbrica del Vedere hosts copies of cinematographic works on DVD or digitalized, books and publications, fantastic equipment, testimonies and “memorabilia” even from the period, together with a notable corpus of photographs, including those that are part of the Fund of the great Venetian director, photographer and scholar Francesco Pasinetti, entrusted to the Montanaro Archive by the author's heirs.

The Fabbrica del Vedere is not only a splendid window open onto a past that never ceases to amaze, but it also lends itself to representing the ideal place for meetings and workshops, where you can share, through dialogue, knowledge and interests in every art form that sees its raison d'être in images and imagination.

Celebrating the ten years of such a singular and precious place simply means celebrating Cinema and its History.

On the stage of the Short Film Festival Laura Cesaro, researcher at Ca’ Foscari, will talk with Carlo Montanaro.

Special Programs

Carlo Montanaro – The Factory of Seeing
East Asia Now
Girls just wanna draw: the art of Joanna Quinn
Live performance: Musicafoscari
Short meets Faraz Arif Ansari
Short meets Liliana Cavani
The suspended gaze
The World of Philippe Le Guay
The World of Živa Kraus
Thoughts from the set: Ninagawa Mika
VideoConcorso “Francesco Pasinetti”
Whistling Woods International
Young Filmmakers at Ca’ Foscari