BOLLEZZUMME STORY
Who are we?
We are a sort of Dirty Dozen or Magnificent Seven or Wild Bunch, if you want, but we don’t
shot guns; we rather shoot videos, pictures, performances and books. Besides -
we don’t die as heroes, we may live long to shoot a lot of ideas.
From our systematic and careful exploration of i caruggi, the alleys of the six centuries old Historical Center
of the city of Genoa and its port, is flowering a docu-film-cult called Bollezzumme. The word comes from the
dialect of Genoa, “A l'è ou boullezzumme”
they say denoting the movement of the sea shore when it is hit by a mild wind
that creates directions and currents as a sort of bubbling; in English it could
be translated with “foaming-sea-froth”. This bollezzumme sometimes is uncomfortable and makes us sea-sick; sometimes
is ironic and makes us smile; sometimes is meaningful and makes us think, exactly
as it happens in real life. In any case, it generates culture, movement,
progress in a social background of diversity, ethnicity, and confrontation.
In the 1960s - when I was a high school and university student - this
diversity was coming from Italian southerners who were migrating north to look
for a better life for their children and families. Now the diversity is more
colorful as it comes from Africans, South Americans, Indians, and Chinese.
Who am I?
The Historical Center of Genoa has become a sort of a 'pedestrian New York',
an extra borough of my elected city. The connection between the city where I
was born and completed my academic and street education, Genoa - and my city of
choice, New York, is very strong and goes back a few centuries not only because
Christopher Columbus was from Genoa and discovered the new American continent. Both
places are ports, both call for temporary and long term immigration, for
travelers, workers, sailors, tourists, underground realities, beautiful
buildings, local politics and controversial realities as transgender,
prostitution, fetishism.
Let’s go back to my roots and the explorations of the Historical Center of
Genoa and its performers, which allowed me to get, on the field, my degree in
street wisdom, so useful in looking for underground spots mostly in NYC's Bronx
or Harlem. I want to pay homage to my hometown by means of my previous
experience of thirty-five years as a ‘urban explorer’ in New York where, I
believe, I acquired a special eye at social issues and things I love, as in my
two former works: T.V. Transvestite,
a one hour long peak at the transsexual scene in Harlem, realized with Simone
di Bagno in 1982, and Pornology New York
of 2005, a nostalgic look at the social freedom and sexual experimentation of
my beloved Big Apple with the presence of my friends Lenny Waller, Neville
Chambers and Porsche Lynn. Both works have become anthropological records of
the past and I hope that 'Bollezzumme' will become the same.
I am the director of these three movies. To be a movie director is perhaps
one of the most difficult and complex things in the realm of artistic
production. In fact, when a work of art is created, the artist – say a painter,
a writer or a composer – is generally left alone, more or less free to find a
way to express himself. This doesn’t happen to a movie director. A movie is
necessarily created by a diverse group of people around you, each one with his
specific qualifications that a motivated director must detect, uncover, stimulate
and channel toward visible results, exactly like a choir master in a concert.
Creating
Bollezzumme
One balmy morning toward the end of June 2013, I was walking as usual to
the Bar Cabala, my favorite spot for espresso in Genoa across the street from
the Socialab, when I bumped into Alfredo Viaggi, one of the pioneers of our ‘wild
bunch’. Two years earlier, in 2011, he found the site for the Socialab and he
introduced me to the first characters of the movie while I was living in his
flat at Vico del Duca. By all means Alfredo was the first hoop of a long chain
of events.
This serendipitous meeting with Alfredo made me go back to the beginning of
the journey I am narrating in the movie. What happened since then? Where are we
with the project? The gods always want
to be part of the game and, if you don’t bother them, they end up in helping with
the first push. Well, we are now fully immersed in the complexities of the editing
stage.
The people
who created Bollezzumme
Luca Donnini, an artist from Rome, came to Genoa totally by chance. When he
arrived by train to the Stazione Principe in an evening of December 2012, I
walked him through the infamous Via Prè, I took him to Alfredo's home for good
pasta and excellent conversation and then he went to an underground club where
he could smoke pot but not cigarettes. The impact was fatal for him so much so
that he did not leave for one year and became a prisoner of i caruggi! That night I told him: “Dear
Luca, the gods want us to work together at my movie!” He was experimenting
shooting with a video camera, editing and having fun at it. His work - Walking a 45’ video presented in June
2013 at Mix Film Milano Festival - is compelling, brilliant and personal. It
gives a unique look at the city with very intriguing and powerful images and I
am very proud of the outcome.
At that time I had no idea about the script or the outline of my film as it
was continually growing and changing. It was a fantastic process involving many
friends and was more than a work in progress: it was a full social and filming
experiment. We shoot a great amount of material. Within the spirit of the
project we had the principal video camera work done by Luca Donnini, Luigi
Cazzaniga, Matteo Forli and whoever else was with us during the nine official
days of shooting in September 2012.
In February, artist and video maker Garret Linn joined me in Genoa. We went
around and captured precious images and situations. Garret also helped to set
up, for the editing, the diverse technical aspects of using, as a choice,
different cameras, each with its own look. In fact, images have diverse looks
since I want to create a visual ‘bollezzumme’
as much as I am creating a narrative ‘bollezzumme’,
even in the editing process. Bollezzumme hence becomes a metaphor of the
constant boiling of life as time runs head without stopping.
Adel Oberto, an international award-winning director of shorts - he just
completed a 20' film ‘Il pescatore’
(The fisherman) with Michele Cadei, now starting its travelling through major
film festivals - is my editor. He is from Genoa, lived in New York City the
first five years of his life, graduated at the National Film & Television
School and speaks English better than me.
Other collaborators to the project are producers Francesca Abbadessa and
Gioacchino Turdo, managers with a generous attitude, very precious assistants
in any artistic endeavor; Riccardo Barbera, a musician who enthusiastically
invested his talent in some very moody and groovy tunes with great passion; Matteo
Forli, Stefano Agnini and Matteo Manzitti for their work on camera, sound and music;
Lidia Giusto for the stills; Adrian Chiro, Cecilia Malfatto and Chloe Raffaelli
for their assistance and support, Daniela De Blasio resourceful costumist. To end with my very important 'script-shrinks'
Alberto Borriero, Paolo Cecchi and Guido Giovannini Torelli; the latter also
contributed to the development and the writings in this blog.
Currently the project is in the hands and hearts of me and Adel. The
editing is in the delicate moment of decisions, cuts, and choices. What do we
want to say, tell, show of the hundreds of hours we shot? What is coming out of
the many chats, interviews, meetings? We will have the answers only when the
film is finished with the music, the sound, and the voices of the many people
who were in front and in the back of our cameras. I want to name here in casual
order all the people and friends who have been partaking in different
capacities and at various times: Dagmar, Joachim, Mimma, Alfredo, Enrico,
Elisabetta, Giacomo, Maya, Luigi, Cosimo, Paola, Maria, Nico, Rosario, Susanna,
Alessia, Bri, Ulla, Mauro, Mauri, Bruna, Sara, Ugo, Claudio, Marco, Piero,
Stella, Thelma - forgive me if I left out somebody - I am grateful to all of
them for their generosity and availability. This is the 'Bollezzumme Wild Bunch'.
Each one of them has been and will continue to be part of this whimsical philosophy,
a state of mind even more creative than the movies, photos, videos or works of
art we will eventually produce.
Socialab and
Screenings on Tuesdays
Two other main twigs of the Bollezzumme big tree were 'Tuesday at the Socialab'
and ‘Cinebollezzumme’. Since the beginning of February, a very heterogeneous
crowd gathered at our place, located in a strategic section of the Historical
Center close to the Porto Antico, Via Prè and Via Balbi. We offered old and new
movies and documentaries, vintage porno flicks, book readings, political
discussions, live music from rock to opera and performances. We have been taping
on and off such events.
Alternatively - always on Tuesdays - we organized the 'Cinebollezzumme' at
a screening room created at Fabrizio Nanni’s Bar Sottoripa where we showed films
by Polanski, Antonioni, Cassavetes and other great directors. We have been a
different reality – may be a little naughty and underground – of the cultural
life of Genoa mostly connected by word of mouth. Both activities spanned the
cultural spectrum from classics to porno, a 360 degrees approach to culture and
information, I must say.
What’s next?
On November 22nd I will celebrate my 67th birthday with a closing party at
the Socialab which will be filmed as the last scene of the movie. On that
occasion we’ll surely also remember what happened one morning of fifty years
ago in Dallas, Texas.
The sirens of New York are singing again loudly for me, both of them: Ulysses’
mermaids and the shrieking sirens at night in the city that never sleeps! The
energy you feel there is unique and that is the reason why so many people go
there, including me in 1978...
Two years went by since I started writing the project and now it is almost
ready. I have a very interesting cut of 91 minutes which I showed to friends in
Genoa, Rome, Milan, New York and their first impression was very positive: “The
film is there” they all said. So I have to keep my head straight, trim the cut,
add the voice over, mix the music, write the subtitles for the English version,
invent some editing surprise… This is a lot of work and the adrenaline is flowing
in our systems.
The goal to show our vision of Genoa is becoming urgent and I promise it
will be poetic and personal. Part of this work, anyhow, I have to do it in New
York as the film needs to be 'bathed in the Hudson River' and even maybe in 'Laland',
Los Angeles, the world capital of filmmaking. In fact, since the beginning my
goal has been to have the first version in English so to explore various
options in the American market, both for theatrical release and TV programming
– the sky is the limit! It helps a lot that two docu-fictions recently won the film
festivals in Venice and in Rome and both of them are about stories “on the road”.
Good news, especially for my investor. Prior to that, only Michael Moore’s
documentary in Cannes won the first price at a festival.
Going in flashback I see a film in itself. With 'bollezzumme' I feel that I
accomplished something good for myself, my friends and my hometown. This
exciting trip is not completely over, I know, because of the final
post-production phase and the gigantic work to promote, sell and show it. While
I am finishing this project, already in the back of my mind I have new dreams,
new ideas and new projects, the next one. When a soccer player is asked which
is the best goal he scored, the best answer is 'the next one'. I look forward
to complete this movie swiftly and start a new project right away.
I know that 'bollezzumme' is mostly the film but it is also a way of life. It
is a tree to which are attached many branches, the work of friends in art,
television and cinema. It does not belong to me only but to whoever has been
working on it and wish to work with it: I look forward to see all my friends on
the 22nd of November in Genoa to celebrate together so many things.
Dreaming of my NYC (Photo by Lidia Giusto)
For ever
yours, Michele Capozzi – November 2013
