In the 18th edition of Archivio Aperto, the Art & Experimental Film section, dedicated to the recovery and re-enactment of Italian independent cinema from the 1960s and 1970s, pays tribute to Andrea Granchi (1947-2024).
“Performative, quotational, playful, animated, collagistic, semi-narrative, hyper-textual, carnivalesque, conceptual, pop, ironic, ramshackle: there are many adjectives we could use to describe Andrea Granchi’s cinema, but none of them would suffice to describe it in all its complexity” (Bruno Di Marino).
Andrea Granchi produced highly original, ironic, and irreverent films, almost always shot in Super8, which were astonishing for their time and for their theoretical and practical approach that transcends time. Today, we recommend them as a source of inspiration and analog resistance. In the introduction to the splendid volume he left us as a guide to his artistic journey (L’immagine in movimento. Film e opere, 1966-2019), Granchi hoped that his research, works, and documents, i.e., his archive, “might one day become a point of reference for the younger generations who will animate the cultural climate of our future with renewed spirit and methods, but with an eye to memory.”
We will start from these words, from the viewing of three restored films (Cosa succede in periferia, 1971; Il giovane rottame, 1972, and Morte del movimento, 1974) and from the stories collected in a video interview for a brief but intense journey with Andrea Granchi: the dream of a future through the archive.
Curated by Jennifer Malvezzi, Mirco Santi, and Paolo Simoni