DRAW IN at THE SELVA NERA FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL 2019

 

 

For the third consecutive year, one of my cinematographic works has been selected by the Selva Nera Film Festival of Padua. After "EDOnism" and "Malorda" it's the turn of "Draw in", a rural psycho-thriller I've filmed at the end of last summer as one of my "multimedianic" indie productions, in competition in the shorts section. A few weeks ago, near the same location, representing Italy, I also shot the segment of an international collective documentary film conceived and edited by a young filmmaker from Rabat that will be unveiled within September. A proof that even in the most remote corner of the deep countryside it's impossible to escape from the manifold depths of Self.

 

DRAW IN

    

DRAW IN (2018)

It will draw you in if you will draw it

Sometime the rugged countryside isn't the ideal place where isolating yourself from the world (surely not from all the other worlds).

 Directed, written, performed, edited and produced by AFAN Alessandro Fantini.

 Music, sound effects and cinematography by AFAN Alessandro Fantini. 

AFAN PICTURES 2018

TEASER

    

Teaser (2018) 

Directed and edited by AFAN Alessandro Fantini 

Music by AFAN Alessandro Fantini

TIRANTI TRANSIT

TIRANTI TRANSIT



Tiranti Transit by Alessandro Fantini from AFan Alessandro Fantini on Vimeo.

 The following is an interesting review of one my early short movies shot in DV provided some years ago by the american director and writer Patrick Meaney

Tiranti Transit is a short film by Italian director, Alessandro Fantini. It was interesting approaching this film because I can see so much of my own work in the film, both the triumphs and the failures.

The film's in Italian, and I didn't have access to the English dialogue, but I think it's so well made that you don't even need to understand the dialogue. The primary concern is building a mood, and what lingers with me after viewing the film is not the story, it's more this feeling of melancholy and warmth. In that respect, it's a very prototypical European art film. I haven't seen that much of his work, but it's reminiscent of Antonioni, with a decentralized narrative and a focus on aesthetic qualities.

I think that's what makes cinema so powerful, a Wong Kar-Wai film wouldn't work in any other medium because it's not solely about the story, or solely about the aesthetics, it's about the fusion of music and visual to create a singular feeling. The score in this film is fantastic, moody and Blade Runneresque, it's a large part of why the short works as well as it does.

The best moments in the film are at the end. There's a fantastic shot where the woman opens a door inside and there's a cut to a wide open road, which we then see her standing on. It's a great moment of surreal cutting, using editing to make a transition that's not possible in reality. This leads up to the really nice ending of the film.

My big issue with the film, something that's true of a lot of low budget, digital works, is that some shots just feel like home video, and that takes you out of the story. It's the biggest concern in working with digital, I absolutely love DV and would gladly shoot it over film, but it means that you need to better, to ensure that each shot has the care you would spend for a filmbased take. Even David Lynch had some really sloppily composed shots in Inland Empire, it's tough to nail every shot and a few here just didn't quite work. But, it didn't fully take me out of the story's mood, and I was able to quickly shift back in and reengage with the story. Maybe some color correction would resolve that issue, or more likely, just a higher end camera.

The other thing I wasn't sure about was the zooms. Some of them were great, but some felt a bit arbitrary. Some filmmakers use the zoom lens in great ways, most notably Robert Altman. I feel like with the zoom you either have to be really slow, or really fast. If you use the default camera speed, it can feel rote. But, I'm not sure if I'm reacting that way just because I know about cameras and can see how it worked. However, I'm still glad that he tried it, because some of those zooms made for great moment.

I'd rather watch a film like this than a polished Hollywood movie that doesn't have any energy in the shooting. I'd rather have a few shots that don't quite make it if it means having some of the fantastic compositions that appear throughout the film. As I've said many times before, I'd rather see a film that aims high and doesn't quite make it than something that has no ambition and nails it. So, the flaws of this film don't mean that it's not a great viewing. This film is a world you can slip into, and I really enjoyed my time there. And, the ending had a primal power that I found very affecting and well done.

If you want to view the film, it's on line here, and there's more information on Alessandro, including some fantastic art, right here. at his site.

Director Showreel 2015

     

It’s quite hard to tell if, at the beginning, my infatuation for painting was stronger than my fixation for filmmaking and writing, but it’s easy to say that over the last 20 years they grow tied together forming a sort of vineyard where the pictorial images are grapes from which the hands of the narrative skill extract the wine of audio-visual elation. I wish the viewers would be able to enjoy this juice as much as I enjoy growing the vine grapes in the soil of my inborn and atoxic drunkenness.

                                   

Alessandro Fantini - director showreel 2015

An anthology of the best movies, shorts, documentaries and music videos  directed and produced by Alessandro Fantini between 2003 and 2015.
Edited by Alessandro Fantini.
Music by Alessandro Fantii: "The bronze dawn" from the concept album "Nyctalopia" (2014).

Inside the set out of space

Before starting greater projects I use to test and develop new little and big intuitions all by myself, experimenting and exploiting the most improbable devices in order to achieve my main purpose: escaping from Reality without leaving Reality. These visions reach me mainly while I'm painting or writing something totally different from their content. Sometime I can manage to get them while I'm in a crowded place (squares, parties, city streeets, supermarkets, family lunches) where noise level is so high that my mind has to isolate itself to preserve its integrity, allowing to hidden thoughts and subtle emotions to resurface suddenly. I'm beginning the filming of this new short movie knowing it will be my last low-budget indipendent production located in my home town. Two weeks of insane monsoonlike storms has revealed the debris of old claustrophobic fantasies belonging to my remote childhood. However I'm fully aware that this place will never stop fuelling the engine of my phantom ship.