Special Screening: “Sanguepazzo” (Crazy Blood) by Marco Tullio Giordana

Sanguepazzo ("Crazy Blood"), by Marco Tullio Giordana, is being shown today in the Special Screenings program at this 61st Festival de Cannes. The Milanese director had been pondering this project for over twenty years. Today, he presents a lush portrayal of the lives of famed Mussolini-era film-industry stars Osvaldo Valenti and Luisa Ferida. These two highly controversial individuals were, of course, loyal fascists, and their private life was rumored to be a debauchery of excess, extravagance, and depravity.

Marco Tullio Giordana, on his desire to make this film: "I began writing about this subject immediately after Maledetti vi amorò ("To Love the Damned"), my first film. That was in the late 70s, and this murky story, lacking a catharsis, of two fascist actors executed just after Italy’s Liberation, seemed totally irrelevant to the times. Back then, the only book about Valenti and Ferida was Aldo Lualdi’s "Morire a Salò." He was the first to try to put the story back together. Many of the witnesses to the events were still alive, so I myself sought interviews with them. Some were elusive, and refused to meet me. Others flooded me with information; they were so eager to tell the story I thought they must have been trying to free themselves of a burden. The research was a slow immersion in the memory of people who had suffered through the worst of all catastrophes, war, where the winner himself is a loser: civil war."

Presenting his film in the Salle Debussy, Marco Tullio Giordana remarked: "It stirs my heart to return to this auditorium, where we premiered my film Nos Meilleures Années [literally, "Our Best Years"] with a film about our worst years. I hope you’ll like it as much as you liked my earlier film. It’s shorter – two and a half hours, instead of six. Thank you for coming, thanks to all the producers and actors!"