GIORGIO MANGIAMELE'S DAY - The Italian Cultural Institute (Sydney) pays tribute to a pioneer Italian-Australian film-maker

Giorgio Mangiamele

The Italian Cultural Institute is pleased to present, in collaboration with Palace Cinemas and the N.F.S.A. (National Film and Sound Archive) an event dedicated to the Italian-Australian director, Giorgio Mangiamele's Day.

 The tribute will take place at the Chauvel Cinema in Paddington on 22 July 2023 commencing at 4.00pm. After a greeting by the director of the Institute, Paolo Barlera, there will be a screening of Ninety Nine percent (1963). This will be followed by a panel discussion focusing on the various aspects of Mangiamele's filmmaking, his contribution to the Australian film industry and the social issues of his films. The panel will include Gino Moliterno and  Geoff Gardner & Quentin Turnour from Cinema Reborn. 

 

After the round table and a brief convivial break, the public will be able to attend a screening of Clay (1965). Clay was the official Australian entry in the Cannes Film Festival competition in its year of production, a rare honour for an Australian film to this day.

 

In the post-war period, after almost twenty years of monopoly by Anglo-American productions, between the 1950s, 1960s and the early 1970s, two films that have now become "cult"  attractions appeared. Both of them narrate the Italian migrant epic journey in Australia: They're a weird mob (1966 ), an Anglo-Australian production directed by Michael Powell based on a novel by John O'Grady writing as Nino Culotta, and the Italian Bello onesto emigrato Australia sposerebbe compaesana illibata (A Girl in Australia, 1971) by Luigi Zampa with Alberto Sordi and Claudia Cardinale in the lead roles.

 

In the same period one name stands out above all others for the contribution given to the emerging Australian film industry and downunder productions that see Italians as protagonists, there was as well the cinema of Giorgio Mangiamele.

 

Based in Melbourne and filming on the streets of the suburbs which became home for tens of thousands of Italian immigrants, all of Mangiamele's film-making is characterized by, in the words of critic, historian and film-maker Graham Shirley a “poetic visual style that combined his already evident humanism with the ability to capture the inner life of his characters. His films represented the isolation, alienation and encounters with racism that could be part of the experience of migration to Australia in the 1950s and 60s“.

 

In Ninety Nine percent, his only comedy, Mangiamele tells the tragi-comic story of the father of a little boy, a widower who in order to appease the criticisms of the boy's School Principal who accuses him of not paying attention to the boy, decides to put an advertisement in the newspaper looking for a woman to marry him and help him support his child.

Clay tells the story of an escaped prisoner who finds shelter in a bohemian  community. His arrival of the intruder unleashes wild passion and jealousy among the small close-knit community.

 

After studying Fine Arts in Catania, Film Production at the Scientific Police of Rome and Journalism at the Pro-Deo University of Rome, Giorgio Mangiamele (1926-2001) arrived in Australia as a migrant in 1952. The following year he began to shoot the his first  film, The Contract (1953). This and his subsequent five films Unwanted (1958), The Brothers (1958), two versions of The Spag (c.1960 and 1962) and Ninety Nine Per Cent (1963) focused on the difficulties faced by migrants in the process of integrating into the new country. From the second version of The Spag onwards, Mangiamele developed his own particular style which critics define as the ability to transpose poetry onto the film material he produced. This style, developed extensively in his only comedy, Ninety Nine Per Cent, reached its most perfect form in Clay (1965), which represented Australia at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival. 

After Clay, Mangiamele had significant difficulty raising funds for the types of films he wanted to make. His science fiction film Beyond Reason(1970) for example, failed to break into the commercial circuit despite distribution by Columbia Pictures, and his final films were promotional and educational documentaries for the Papua New Guinea Information Bureau. However until his death, Mangiamele never stopped writing and planning further feature films.

 

Giorgio Mangiamele leaves a lasting legacy not only as a courageous and determined film poet, but also as someone who continued to make fictional films at a time when many in the Australian film industry considered it impossible. The National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra has paid tribute to Mangiamele by restoring five of his films and initiating and collaborating on the production of the Ronin Film DVD boxset Watch a Trailer of Giorgio's work

 

The scene of the newborn Australian film industry was dotted with Italian names. Without wanting to dwell here with detailed information that can be found in the writings of Gaetano Rando and Gino Moliterno. Humbert and Antonio Pugliese, Ernesto Crosetto, Joe Valli, Ettore Siracusa, Charles Zolli and Armando Lionello have all made significant contributions.

 

 

For Bookings Click Here