Persistence of Vision Award: Mark Cousins + The March on Rome

(Marcia su Roma)

In Conversation

Documentary filmmaker and writer Mark Cousins has made features about the writer D. H. Lawrence (6 Desires: DH Lawrence and Sardinia), his hometown (My Belfast), and the bombing of Hiroshima (Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise). But it is in his work devoted to cinema that he has made his biggest impact. He is the director of the fifteen-hour documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey; its sequel, The Story of Film: A New Generation; The Eyes of Orson Welles; The Storms of Jeremy Thomas, about the Oscar-winning producer; and many other works that display his vast knowledge of film. Among this year’s SFFILM Festival offerings is his witty survey My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock. We dedicate this year’s POV presentation to the late Tom Luddy, whom Cousins calls “one of the most influential film people of the second half of the twentieth century.” The POV presentation includes Cousins in conversation with Thom Powers, host of the Pure Nonfiction podcast and the documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival, followed by a screening of The March on Rome. My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock will screen on April 21


About the Film

Aiming for a coup, fascist Black Shirts marched from Naples to Rome in 1922, the demonstration leading to the ascension of Benito Mussolini as Italy’s dictator. Mark Cousins explores this pivotal moment in a commanding documentary that weaves together world and cinema history. Actor Alba Rohrwacher appears as a witness to Il Duce’s regime, but most of the film is culled from archival footage. Cousins’s centerpiece is Umberto Paradisi’s propagandistic record of the march, A noi!, which the filmmaker dissects, exposing a foundational myth of Italian fascism and demonstrating the power of lies to alter history. Cousins masterfully connects the past to the present, making manifest the adage that those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.

FILM DETAILS 
Cinematographer
  • Mark Cousins
  • Timoty Aliprandi
Language
  • English
  • Italian
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W/Color
  • DCP
  • 98 mins
Source
  • SFFILM