FRANCESCO MASELLI
Director, he was born on December 9 th 1930 in Rome. Interrupted the high school studies,he entered to the Experimental Center of cinematography very young and he was well soon the assistant of Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti, for Cronache di un amore (1950), La signora senza camelie(1954) and the episode interpreted by Anna Magnani in We, the women (1953). In the meantime he realized quite a lot documentaries, between which of particular value Bagnaia, villaggio italiano (1949), Finestre (1950), Zona pericolosa. In 1953 he realized with Cesare Zavattini the episode Storia di Caterina for the film-investigation Love in the city, and subsequently his first feature film Gli sbandati (1956), that narrated an episode of the Resistance with juvenile boldness, psychological acumen and narrative vigor. He faced the world of the magazines and the publicity with The doll that took the town (1957) but the results were modest. The dauphins (1960) resulted more incisive, human and social portrait of a group of bourgeois young people of the Italian province and Time of Indifference (1964), drawn from the homonym novel of Alberto Moravia, a good product of craftsmanship. Unconventional and revolutionary director in his first works, always busy in the social denunciation and in the political and ideological criticism, Maselli has tried to bring the first Neorealism to a deeper individualization of the problems of our society, but an expressive insufficiency has prevented him from reaching really valid and lasting results.

FILMOGRAPHY

1953 - Love in the City (Segment Storia di Caterina)
1956 - Gli sbandati
1957 - The Doll That Took the Town
1960 - The Dauphins
1961 - Le italiane e l'amore
(segment Le adolescenti)
1964 - Time of Indifference
1967 - Fai in fretta ad uccidermi... ho freddo!
1968 - A Fine Pair
1972 - Lettera aperta a un giornale della sera
1975 - Il sospetto
1986 - Storia d'amore
1988 - Private Access
1990 - The Secret
1990 - The Dawn
1996 - Cronache del terzo millennio
1999 - Il compagno
(TV)

 

PRIZES

1955: Mostra of Venezia: medal ex aequo for the new directors (Gli sbandati)
1957: Festival of Karlovy Vary: prize for a young director (The Doll That Took the Town)
1986: Mostra of Venezia: special prize of the jury (Storia d'amore)

From the Dizionario del Cinema Italiano1945/1969 Author Gianni Rondolino Publisher Einaudi 1969