CATANZARO The initiatives promoted by the Cineteca della Calabria to remember the 140 years since the birth of Francesco Misiano. At the Rock Museum in Catanzaro, a structure directed by Piergiorgio Caruso, with the participation of journalists Bruno Gemelli and Luigi Stanizzi, Demetrio Iannone, Domenico Levato and Eugenio Attanasio for the Cineteca della Calabria, the volume which collects unpublished writings was discussed and talked about antimilitarists of Misiano but which also describes his great adventure in the country of the Bolsheviks where he became director and president of Mezrabpom film. With this company Misiano reaches the pinnacle of his cinematographic career, told through excerpts from his most significant works, including “Mary Pickford’s Kiss” by Sergei Komarov, an account of a Moscow trip by Douglas Fairbanks jr. and Mary Pickford to promote the film industry of a young Soviet Union. Mezrabpom produces the most important Russian directors of the time such as Protazanov, Ekk and above all Pudovkin, who created some of the greatest masterpieces in the history of cinema of all time for this house. Curiously, one of the first films awarded in Venice, in the edition in which the exhibition was not competitive, in 1932 was a film produced by Misiano, “The Path to Life” by Nikolaj Ekk, also the first sound film in the history of Soviet cinema . But the feverish activity of the Calabrian is not limited only to the Soviet Union because it extends to all of Europe and particularly to Germany, where, together with his partner and friend Willy Munzenberg, he creates Prometheus film, a structure that imports films shot into the West in Russia, and which produces very interesting works by Brecht, Ivens, Piscator, giving life to “Proletarian Cinema”, a cinema designed to represent the needs of the popular classes.
The figure of Misiano has undoubtedly suffered a problem of historical removal due to his political career. stormy saw him at the forefront of the history of the Italian and then European twentieth century. Particularly painful was the break with the socialist party after the split of Livorno which contributed to his political isolation such as to force him, with the advent of fascism in Italy, to abandon his country for where the story of the deputy Misiano ends begins that of the extraordinary cultural operator at the service of the international proletariat between Germany first and the Soviet Union afterwards. Misiano pacifist, great promoter of cinema and man of dialogue between the USA and the USSRin short, an extraordinarily modern character on which new and great initiatives will be carried out during 2024: after the summer, a review of the films produced by Mezrabpom, the presentation of the volume Francesco Misiano/ cinema and revolution translated into English by Demetrio Iannone at the new York University, while the virtual exhibition of the same name can be visited on Artsteps.
