a film by Joël Curtz
produced by Le Fresnoy, National Studio for Contemporary Arts, France
format | Documentary, 41 mins, 2012
World Premiere at l’IDFA, Amsterdam, November 2012
Synopsis
Dressed in a wedding gown, the Milanese artist Pippa Bacca leaves her native city in direction of Jerusalem. Accompanied by fellow artist Silvia Moro, both women hitchhike their way across the Balkans with a clear aspiration: opening themselves towards “the Other”. As their travel-performance unfolds, the artists decide to take two different paths and Pippa is later found dead in Turkey. The film embarked on a journey in quest of her memories.
Director’s biography : Joël Curtz – http://joelcurtz.com/
Born in 1985 in Paris, Joël Curtz is a visual artist and film director. After his studies at the “Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg“ and at the ”Universität der Künste” de Berlin, he obtained his Diploma at the “Academy of Fine Arts Vienna“ under the tutelage of Harun Farocki and at “Le Fresnoy, National Studio for contemporary arts“ in France.
Joël Curtz explores the notion of human encounters, poetry and self-referencing (e. g. image in image) in his work. He also regularly acts in his projects and plays with his own image.
The relationship with the spectator and the intrusion in private sphere are recurrent themes in his work.
Prix des amis du Fresnoy 2012 / Friends of Le Fresnoy Prize 2012
Distributed in Italia by SCIARA film production.
FESTIVALS
– IDFA International Documentary Film Festival, competition (Netherlands, 2012)
– Rencontres Henri Langlois, Festival International des écoles de cinéma (France, 2012)
– FIFA International Festival of Films on art (Montréal, Canada, 2013)
– Aljazeera Documentary Film Festival (Doha, Qatar, 2013)
– Documentarist, Istanbul Documentary Days (Turkey, 2013)
– International Festival of Cinema and Religion (Trento, Italie, 2013)
– Media 10-10, Festival du court-métrage de Namur (Belgique, 2013)
– Lo schermo dell’arte Film Festival (Florence, Italie, 2013)
– Festival La Première Fois (Aix en Provence, France, 2014)
Texts and articles about La Mariée
> Giornale di Brescia – 26.06.2013 -Pippa Bacca, il sogno dell’artista diventa un film (Italien)
> Pippa Bacca Tekkrar Istanbul’daydi – 22.06.2013 -article by Ruggero Calish (Turkish)
> Corriere della sera – 08.03.2013- Pippa Bacca, 8 marzo, un saluto (Italien)
> Turbulences video 76 – Juillet 2012 : Texte de Jean-Paul Fargier (French)
Text by IDFA about La Mariée
In the opening scene, we see a bride filming herself and a truck driver as they drive along a highway. Then we learn that this hitchhiker in a bridal gown has been murdered near Istanbul. So have we just seen the killer? Artist Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, alias Pippa Bacca, traveled to the Middle East dressed as a bride, hoping to spread a message of peace and love. She was convinced that after a performance that would last for several months, her faith in humankind would be rewarded. Joël Curtz has made a remarkable documentary with the help of Bacca’s family and close friends, and using footage the girl shot herself. When people talk about Bacca, they stress the importance of her goal and the way she went about achieving it: it’s more about symbolism and human contact and less about bleak death and bitter sadness. The bride was meant to be a symbol of innocence, birth and life, but in the end Bacca was found strangled and raped. The attempts to find meaning in her death, and to see it as her destiny if need be, are at odds with her ultimate fate.