Roberto Faenza Biography
Roberto Faenza (1943 - ) is an Italian director. Born in Turin in 1943, Faenza graduated in Political Science and graduated from the Experimental Center of Cinematography. Faenza made his directorial debut in 1968 with the international success Escalation; soon after he directed H2S, an angry apologia of the 1968 movement, which was seized two days after its release and has not been distributed since. After this kidnapping he went to the United States to teach at Federal City College in Washington DC. In 1978 he directed Forza Italia!, a ferocious satire on the power of the Italian Christian Democrats which traces thirty years of Italian political history. The film was withdrawn from theaters on the day of the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, president of the Christian Democrats, and remained banned for over 15 years. Aldo Moro will be the one who ends his life by recommending (in his manuscript memoirs found in the hideout of the Red Brigades in via Monte Nevoso in Milan) to see the film. In 1980 Faenza chose the Italian Communist Party as its subject with Si Salvi Chi Vola. Considered a politically incorrect director, he was forced to work outside Italy to find financing. His activity is not limited to cinema: the author of essays and books (among the best known: Without asking for permission, Il malaffari, The Americans in Italy), upon his return to Italy he began teaching Mass Communication at the University of Pisa. In 1992 he directed a film inspired by a novel by Antonio Tabucchi, Sosviene Pereira, the last Italian film by Marcello Mastroianni, the latter awarded with a David di Donatello as best leading actor. In 1997 he directed Marianna Ucria based on the novel The Long Life of Marianna Ucria by Dacia Maraini. His most recent films are: Come to light, about the life of Pino Puglisi, the parish priest killed in Palermo by the mafia in 1993; The Days of Abandonment, based on the novel by Elena Ferrante, with Margherita Buy, Luca Zingaretti and the musician Goran Bregovic. The Viceroys based on the 1894 novel by Federico De Roberto was released in 2007. His latest film (2012) is One day this pain will be useful to you, shot in New York and based on the novel by Peter Cameron, starring Ellen Burstyn and Marcia Gay Harden.
