Short Films by Antonioni, Program 2

Return to Lisca Bianca is an eerie return, twenty-three years later, to the island setting of L'avventura. Antonioni took part in and shot footage of an Indian religious festival for Kumbha Mela. Made for the Italian pavilion at the Seville Expo, the breathtaking Sicilian travelogue Noto Mandorli Volcano Stromboli Carnivale harks back to Antonioni's very first documentaries. Also screened are Fotoromanza, Roma '90, Sicilia, and the self-portrait The Gaze of Michelangelo, “conceivably his most interesting film since Red Desert” (Jonathan Rosenbaum). “A moving meditation on art, the artist, endurance, and mortality, the film shows Antonioni walking into San Pietro church in Rome to scrutinize and caress the recently restored sculpture of Moses by another Michelangelo–Buonarroti” (Cinematheque Ontario).

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