Paolo Brunatto

An investigation into the motives of Spanish workers who migrated to Switzerland in the late 50s, early 60s turns into a sometimes caustic, sometimes melancholic rumination on the land they left behind. A work in between cultures and cinematic modes, a starting point, an opening statement - a clarion call.

From Paolo Brunatto's series "Scheggie Di Utopia".

Short film by Paolo Brunatto with Roberto Benigni performing a fake political rally in Capalbio. Shot for the Italian television.

In the distant future, a spaceship inhabited by a group of young descendants of a "subversive" minority who escaped the destruction of the Earth, recovers a capsule in which the hibernating body of a reactionary warmonger has been preserved, who after having caused war and death, it has abandoned the now unlivable Earth. The visual experimentation aimed at the liberation of the gaze is intertwined with psychedelic visions on the one hand and with the orgone theory of Reichian memory on the other.

In 1966, Bene presented The Pink and the Black, his successful theatrical adaptation of Matthew Gregory Lewis’ lurid Gothic novel from 1796. Experimental filmmaker Paolo Brunatto filmed some of the play’s rehearsals in a Rome apartment (also frequented also by the Living Theatre). Bene's artistry is encapsulated in one sentence: “One cannot continue to prostitute the idea of theatre, which stands only for a magical, brutal link with reality."

Antonio Rezza and Flavia Mastrella are two artists that use their bodies like objects. Their works are exaltations of the object compared to the subject. The interpreter is more important than the author. The role of artistic expression is to represent what is not there. Cinema is an improper weapon because it is in the wrong hands. The solution would be - according to the two artists - for cinema as well as all art to be managed by those who have imagination and who are not down to earth.

Documentary about the making of Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor.

Documentary focused behind the scenes of the making of the play 'io' by Antonio Rezza and Flavia Mastrella

From Paolo Brunatto's series "Scheggie Di Utopia".

During the filming of Arabian Nights (1974), Pier Paolo Pasolini talks about his passion for protecting the complete form of ancient cities and shows us Orte and Sabaudia. Part of a TV Series documentary in 8 episodes.

The journey, which began in India two years earlier, comes to an end at a farmhouse in Tuscany. The two travelers—Poupée and Paolo—decide to "rest" in the countryside, where they begin to discover the pleasures of self-analysis and contemplation. Their Indian experience bears fruit, and Taoist wisdom comes to their aid. The two protagonists seek to discover (don't laugh) the meaning of life.

A journey spanning Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal alongside hippies and beatniks of all nationalities. The lives of a group of young Italians captured on the road to Asia.

A tribute to the human and artistic greatness of a genius that continues to surprise us.

A man receives a telegram that his father is dying, and travels with his wife to his hometown. They discover that the telegram is untrue, and set out to find who sent the message and why.

Backstage short documentary on Carmelo Bene’s theatre works Amleto and Pinocchio.

In this film, as in all my previous ones, there is a direct connection between inner urges and cinematic rendering. I tried to visualize my present aspiration to recover, through the various ways taught by one’s experience, the easiness, directness and ripeness proper to children’s relationships and affective life. This film is maybe a track of this path backwards. – A. L.

Series of documentaries on italian underground cinema through the portrayal of some of the most representative authors - Alfredo Leonardi, Tonino De Bernardi, Romano Scavolini, Piero Bargellini, Gianfranco Baruchello, Alberto Grifi, Paolo Brunatto, Franco Brocani (and Mario Schifano), Paolo Gioli, Anna Lajolo and Guido Lombardi, Annabella Miscuglio, Massimo Bacigalupo - the cinema of the present confronts this movement so vital and courageous, which still remains an example for the new generations.