A documentary for Amedeo Modigliani on the centenary of his death. Coming to theaters in March

On January 24, 1920, Amedeo Modigliani (Livorno, 1884 - Paris, 1920) died in Paris. Exactly one hundred years later, on January 24, 2020, Nexo Digital announces that a documentary-event dedicated precisely to the Leghorn painter will be released in Italian cinemas in March. It is Maledetto Modigliani, in theaters March 30, March 31 and April 1, a 3D Produzioni and Nexo Digital production directed by Valeria Parisi, and written with Arianna Marelli and subject by Didi Gnocchi.

The docufilm, which is part of the 2020 season of the Grande Arte al Cinema program, aims to tell the story of Amedeo Modigliani’s life and art (from his training in Leghorn to his love with Jeanne Hébuterne, who committed suicide a few hours after the artist’s death, from his travels to Florence and Venice to the years in Paris spent amid fleeting love affairs, problems with alcohol, stormy relationships), taking inspiration from the exhibition Modigliani - Picasso. The primitivist revolution, curated by Marc Restellini, which will open at the Albertina in Vienna in September 2020 (the film will also feature the works on view at the Albertina, as well as those from the Paris collections and the paintings and drawings that were on display at the Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure exhibition at the Museum of the City of Livorno, an in-depth review of which can be read in our magazine).

The docufilm will feature Modigliani’s paintings filmed in dedicated sets, and then footage of today’s Paris compared with black-and-white photographs and archival footage, the tale of the ville lumière of the 1920s, the characters who punctuated his life (from Anna Achmatova to Beatrice Hastings, Pablo Picasso to Costântin Brancuşi, from Chaïm Soutine to Jean Cocteau), Livorno’s Venezia Nuova, the places in Jewish Livorno where Modigliani came from, the comparison with the other great artists of the time, the dealers and collectors who made his art great, from Paul Alexandre to Jonas Netter, from Paul Guillaume to Léopold Zborowski. And there will also be an in-depth look at the myth of Modigliani and the numerous forgeries that undermined his image, as well as the famous affair of the fake heads fished out of Livorno’s Fosso Reale.

Among the docufilm’s speakers, in addition to those of art historian and Amedeo Modigliani specialist Marc Restellini, will be those of Ann L. Ardis, professor and Dean in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University, an expert on English modernist literature; Chloe Aridjis, writer and scholar of nineteenth-century French poetry; Harry Bellet, Le Monde journalist, scholar and art critic; and Giovanni Bertazzoni, Co-Chairman Impressionist and Modern Art Department at Christie’s; Laura Dinelli, head of Livorno’s Civic Museums; Pier Francesco Ferrucci, Director Cancer Biotherapy Unit, IEO who as a student was among the authors of the famous 1984 “mockery of the heads” in Livorno; Hebraist Paolo Edoardo Fornaciari; and writer Simone Lenzi, currently the Livorno City Council’s Culture Councillor; gallery owner David Lévy; painter Mira Maodus; fashion designer, costume designer and artist Antonio Marras; painter Isabelle Muller; curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris Jacqueline Munck; and artist John Myatt, who, thanks to his talent for imitation, between 1986 and 1995 forged and placed on the market (together with his accomplice John Drewe) 200 works by modern masters; collector Gérard Netter; artist Jan Olsson; curator of the Musée Picasso Paris Emilia Philippot; Director General of the Albertina in Vienna Klaus Albrecht Schröder; Vice President of the Jewish Community of Livorno Guido Servi; and director, screenwriter and film producer Paolo Virzì.

Tickets to see Damned Modigliani can already be purchased on the Nexo Digital website.

A documentary for Amedeo Modigliani on the centenary of his death. Coming to theaters in March

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