A surprise this morning at the press conference held in the Centro Documentazione Ambientale at Ghivizzano where the precise dates and places of the first showing of David Melani’s film Natalino were to be announced – next Thursday the 25th of February at the cinema Puccini in Fornaci di Barga and then the following week in Cinema Roma in Barga.
The surprise was David and his team had not just produced a feature length film but also on sale in local bookshops from this morning, a book containing some of the story behind the making of the film, the original cartoon by Nazareno Giusti which was the starting point for all this work, some new illustrations by Nazareno and some quite simply stunning photographs taken during the production of the film by Samantha Brandolini.
OK – its now ready for screening – shot in this area with scenes from Barga and a number of Barga-based actors appearing in the film that many people have been talking about for the past 12 months – “Natalino” – will be shown to the public for the first time at a special screening on Thursday 25th February at the Cinema Puccini di Fornaci di Barga 9 pm. A second screening will be showing in Barga cinema Roma on Tuesday 2nd March.
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We first started reporting on the making of this film this back in February of last year. In that article we talked about a new name to add to the list of artists working in this area – the film maker, David Melani.
He was making a strong reputation not just with his directing or his editing skills but also with his drive, purpose and all-round organisational abilities as he had gradually put together over the last couple of years a complete team dedicated to film making using local actors and technicians.
His feature length film lasting an hour and a half “Natalino” is based around a comic strip drawn by Nazareno Giusti involving the tragic story of a small boy injured during the war in 1944.
A short trailer can be seen here
In March 2009 they were filming in Barga before moving on to film in Ghivizzano Alto, Borgo a Mozzano and Ghivizzano. This August that year, they were back once more filming in Barga using the church at Loppia as the backdrop to one of the final scenes in the film.
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There is considerable interest in this area being generated around the making and a showing of the final finished film with a number of heavily populated facebook groups set up by fans eager to see Natalino on their screens.
Taking full advantage of the new social networking tools available via the internet – the director David Melani is one of just a handful of facebook users in this area who have a list of facebook friends hovering around than 5000 mark.
A short interview (in English) with David Melani recorded this morning at the press conference for the launch of the film.