Carlo Montanaro
Guest of honor of one of the special programs of the fourteenth edition of the Ca’ Foscari Short is Carlo Montanaro: a writer, journalist, film critic, university lecturer and one of the world’s leading experts on early cinema. In addition, Carlo Montanaro is a member of our festival’s scientific committee and every year he contributes with valuable special programs dedicated to the origins of film history.
An eclectic scholar, Montanaro has dedicated his life to dissemination; as a true archaeologist of cinema, he continues to delve into the founding elements of what has made the reproduction of images possible from the late 1600s, a process that gradually led to the birth of cinematography.
Carlo Montanaro was born in Burano and, after finishing his classical studies and earning a degree in architecture, he devoted himself to cinema, driven by an inalienable interest in the expressive and shaping potential of light, which, as he is often fond of saying, “cancels the fear of the dark.” His dedication and love for cinema are such that they 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.
Since his youth, he has been involved in cultural exploration, collaborating first with the Federazione Italiana Cineforum and then with the Italian Cinit Cineforum, publishing articles and in-depth reports for specialized magazines and various newspapers, and soon approaching the festival reality. In this sphere, Montanaro will soon collect a series of noteworthy achievements, such as the numerous collaborations at the Venice Film Festival of the Chiarini era, but, above all, he will be one of the founding members of “Le Giornate del Cinema Muto,” the most important kermesse in the world on cinema that preceded the advent of sound, in which, to this day, he sits as a member of the board of directors and oversees screenings and musical events.
There is no shortage of experience in the field, which he soon added to these countless activities: in film, as assistant director to, among the others, Luigi Comencini and Tinto Brass; in television, as author of several RAI programs; in teaching as a lecturer and in the position of director of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice and contract professor at the University of Ca’ Foscari. He is also involved in the the Direzione Generale per il Cinema of the MIBACT and much more. In short, a fascinating career traced by important academic and institutional roles.
La Fabbrica del Vedere
While it is true that an exhaustive account of Carlo Montanaro’s life would require the pages of an entire book or, even better, the minutes of a long film, 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 related to his contribution to film archives. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the birth of his latest creation: the Fabbrica del Vedere, i.e., the home of the “Carlo Montanaro Archive” (Archivio Monatanaro), which was established in the 1960s out of passion and gradually increased in function, even professionally.
A true workshop of wonders, which turns the clock back to decades, to the discovery of that period of the History of Cinema so dear to Carlo Montanaro and which is still able to arouse amazement: from pre-cinema to the birth of sound, with specific attention to technology, animation and avant-garde cinema. In short, a concrete tribute to seeing and to the dazzling inventions that were able to amplify cinema’s horizons in the past. The Seeing Factory houses DVD or digitized copies of cinematographic works, books and publications, fantastic equipment, testimonials and “memorabilia,” including vintage ones, along with a remarkable corpus of photographs, including those that are part of the Fund of the great Venetian director, photographer and scholar Francesco Pasinetti, entrusted to the Archivio Montanaro by the author’s heirs.
The Factory of Seeing is not only a splendid window open on a past that never ceases to surprise, but it also lends itself to being the ideal place for meetings and workshops, where one can share, through dialogue, knowledge and interest in any art form that in image and imagination sees its raison d’être.
Celebrating 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 dialogue with Carlo Montanaro.
