Rai 5 premieres a biographical documentary on Gianni Berengo Gardin

On Friday, April 30, Rai 5 devotes an entire evening to photography with Art Night, the art showcase by Silvia De Felice and Massimo Favia and Marta Santella, directed by Andrea Montemaggiori. So at 9:15 p.m. two documentaries will be aired, dedicated respectively to Gianni Berengo Gardin and Elliott Erwitt, two artists who have shaped and enriched the way we look at the world, friends and united by the same artistic choices (those of black and white, those of the telling of reality done with an immediate gaze, a vision of the world simple, but at the same time rich in deep nuances).

The first documentary, premiering, is The Boy with the Leica directed by Daniele Cini and Claudia Pampinella and produced by Claudia Pampinella for Talpa Produzioni in collaboration with Rai Cultura and with the support of MiC Direzione Generale Cinema e Audiovisivo. The film recounts six decades of Italian history through the images of Gianni Berengo Gardin: a selection of more than 100 photographs and images taken from the most prestigious Italian and French archives was the common thread of a physical and temporal journey through Italy from the 1950s to the present. The documentary follows the path of the writing of the great photographer’s autobiography that his daughter Susanna Berengo Gardin wrote with him during 2020, on the occasion of his 90th birthday(In Parole Povere, edizioni Contrasto 2020). A roster of friends and witnesses of his time, from architect Renzo Piano to photographer Ferdinando Scianna and publisher Roberto Koch, draw a portrait of the photographer and the man, helping to enrich his profile and life story.

The documentary, in addition to being the story of a trip to Italy (interrupted several times by the health emergency), undertaken by Gianni Berengo Gardin together with his daughter Susanna, the custodian of his immense archive, therefore, reconstructs the genesis of his best shots in the exact places and point where they were captured. “Going back to the places definitely serves to rekindle memory,” Susanna Berengo Gardin says. And on the subject of what determines the uniqueness of a photograph, Gianni Berengo Gardin adds, “As Renzo Piano says, if you have the patience to wait someone, or something always passes by. And if it happens, it is beautiful. Because you don’t make the picture, the people who pass by make it.” The Boy with the Leica is also a narrative of the relationship between a father and a daughter: the conflicts, the unravelings, the encounter. An opportunity, finally, to relive the emotions conveyed by his extraordinary black-and-white photographs, reproducing the social context and physical environment of Italy as it changes through the years.

From the first Venetian and Parisian shots in the 1950s, we move on to the experience of Pannunzio’s Il Mondo and soon after to the Italian Touring Club. From his collaboration with Olivetti to his first social reportages in the late 1960s: migrants in Milan’s Central Station and asylums in collaboration with Franco Basaglia. From his Luzzara experience with Zavattini in the 1970s to his association with Renzo Piano in the 1980s, at his construction sites, in Genoa and around the world. From Italy photographed from the train with Ferdinando Scianna and Roberto Koch to the “Desperate Gaiety of the Gypsies” in the 1990s, to the rice fields of the Vercelli area in 2000. Finally his last great civil battle against the Great Ships returning to Venice, in the 1910s of this millennium. During this journey through time, the photographs that made him famous are the protagonists of the documentary: from the unforgettable kisses under the porticos of San Marco in Venice, to the faces reflected in the windows of a Vaporetto, to the extraordinary groups of peasant families.

The photographs chosen to compose the narrative of The Boy with the Leica are taken from an Archive of 2 million shots, representing a priceless heritage in terms of variety and richness of themes and subjects, and testifying to the great photographer’s ability to recount changes with continuity, with an attentive and curious eye, always sensitive to humanity. The largest and most prestigious Italian and French archives have been the source of the images that have drawn the fresco of Italian history from the 1950s to the present. For Italy: Audiovisual Archive of the Workers’ and Democratic Movement, Cesare Colombo Archive, Historical Archive Istituto Luce, DocLab, Cineteca di Bologna Foundation, Miro Film, Rai Teche. Fondazione CSC, Archivio Nazionale Cinema Impresa courtesy of Archivio Storico Olivetti, Centro Storico Fiat and Edison. For France: INA Institut National De L’Audiovisuel. For photographic shots: Contrasto.

Closing Art Night will be an intimate and quiet portrait of Elliott Erwitt, one of the most beloved and followed photographers of all time, with the documentary Elliott Erwitt, silence has a beautiful sound, directed by Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu. An unedited, intimate and quiet portrait of the photographer now considered a true legend in the history of photography. His iconic shots tell with a unique style made of simplicity, immediacy and also a lot of irony the great events of history and the small incidents of everyday life. And they are at the same time a cross-section of our society, made up of politicians, presidents, popes, movie stars but also ordinary people and pets.In his long career Elliott Erwitt has made no distinctions, and has only ever been attracted by the power of images. However, behind the camera, beyond the great artist, is a man about whom we know very little and whom, thanks to this documentary, we can get to know more closely. A man who loves silence as much as company, endowed with a great irony towards himself and the world, a mild and discreet person despite the success he has achieved and still deeply in love with his work.

In the photo: Gianni Berengo Gardin

Rai 5 premieres a biographical documentary on Gianni Berengo Gardin

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