From the Pole to the Equator

From the Pole to the Equator

1987 · 96 min · ★ 6.5 · Documentary

The title Dal polo all'equatore was first used by the pioneering documentary maker, Luca Comerio, for a compilation film of 1925; it was used again by Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi for their film of 1985. Much of the original has been re-worked: the 'found footage' has been re-shot, slowed down, tinted, and re-edited with a sound track of minimalist composition. As a result, the exotica of colonial travel and sport take on new and sinister meanings. The acts of violence, especially those of hunting, recur in patterns that suggest visually that war is a logical development. A close examination of the work, starting with the opening sequence of a railway journey, explores the centrality of questions of memory and history to this remarkable and influential film.

Directed by Yervant Gianikian

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Cast

Raimondo Franchetti Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)

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2h 39m together

From the Pole to the Equator

Balkan Inventory

Both from Yervant Gianikian.

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Angela's Diaries. Two Filmmakers.

Angela's Diaries. Two Filmmakers. · 2018

Angela's Diaries. Two Filmmakers.

MovieDocumentary

Every day of her life, Angela kept a diary, filled with words and drawings, in which she recorded public and private matters, meetings, things she had read, everything. Including the account of two trips to Russia (1989-90). The period of the collapse of the USSR. A diary that she had been keeping in small Chinese notebooks, since before Dal Polo all’Equatore (1986), on our uninterrupted work on the violence of the 20th century. From our tours in the United States with the “scented films” of the late seventies to the Anthology Film Archive of New York and the Berkeley Pacific Film Archive...

People, Years, Life

People, Years, Life · 1990

People, Years, Life

MovieDocumentary

Using images shot in Russia and Armenia from World War I to the 1930s and retrieved from a Soviet film archive, Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi constructed a meditative film about the status of Armenians as a people without a state. Inspired by the diary of Gianikian’s father, People, Years, Life uses rare footage depicting the region’s major historic events: the end of Tsarist Russia, violence in the Caucasus during World War I, the 1918 Armenian exodus from Azerbaijan. Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi’s treatment of the material manipulates the speed of the images, adds color and music, and magnifies various parts of the image, so that the movement of bodies across the frame begins to carry the weight of exile, mourning, dispossession.

On the Heights All Is Peace

On the Heights All Is Peace · 1998

On the Heights All Is Peace

MovieDocumentary

Found footage anti-war film comprising film documents of the Austro-Hungarian and Italian army on the Alpine front, and from first generation picture material by war-film pioneer Luca Comerio.

Oh! Man

Oh! Man · 2004

MovieDocumentaryWar

After Prisoners of the war and On the Heights all is Peace, this film concludes Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi's trilogy on the first world war. From the emblem of totalitarianism to individual physical suffering, the directors use this representation of man's rampaging violence to draw up an anatomical inventory of the damaged body and examine the consequences of the conflict on children, from 1919 to 1921. From the deconstruction to the artificial reconstruction of the human body, they try to understand how humanity can forget itself and perpetuate these horrors.

Balkan Inventory

Balkan Inventory · 2000

Balkan Inventory

MovieDocumentary

Comprised of images shot by amateur photographers and German soldiers in the Balkans from the twenties through the forties, BALKAN INVENTORY was begun by Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi in response to the tragedy unfolding in the former Yugoslavia.

Prisoners of War

Prisoners of War · 1995

Prisoners of War

MovieDocumentaryWar

This haunting film comprises of footage shot during WWI from opposite sides of the conflict: Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian empire. The filmmakers tinted the material with sensual colors from sepia to red, blue, and purple and slowed the footage to analyze the material. The total absence of commentary renders the material eloquent and disturbing. - MoMA

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Barbaric Land · 2013

MovieDramaDocumentary

Milan-based duo Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi create an astonishing work of militant poetry with this found-footage chronicle of Mussolini's brutal invasion of Ethiopia.

Criminal Animals

Criminal Animals · 1994

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MovieDocumentary

In this filmic comment on Fascist ideology - which uses footage from the recently discovered archives of Luca Comerio - invisible hands push captive animals to fight among themselves.

Film perduto

Film perduto · 2008

Io ricordo

Io ricordo · 1997

The memoirs of Raphael Gianikian, Yervant’s father, who survived the 1915 Armenian genocide in eastern Turkey.

Aria

Primarily constructed from scientific films about the atmosphere from the turn of the last century.

Frente a Guernica

Frente a Guernica · 2023

Frente a Guernica

MovieDocumentary

Painted by Picasso in 1937, Guernica is a universal icon against the war. In 2014, the artists Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi conceived a new film that tells the history of 20th century upon the painting. In 2023, years after Angela’s passing, Yervant accomplishes this task.

African Diary

African Diary · 1994

MovieDocumentary

African Diary uses footage from a filmed personal diary shot in Algeria by an anonymous Frenchman between 1927-1936. Here, they reprise his cinematic jottings as he followed in the footsteps of the 19th century Orientalists like Flaubert.

Trasparenze

Trasparenze · 1998

Decaying nitrate film: cinema as an incendiary explosive bomb of memory.

Erat Sora

Erat Sora · 1975

Où en êtes-vous, Yervant Gianikian et Angela Ricci Lucchi?

Où en êtes-vous, Yervant Gianikian et Angela Ricci Lucchi? · 2015

Où en êtes-vous, Yervant Gianikian et Angela Ricci Lucchi?

MovieDocumentary

In this short film, screened and commissioned by the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi revisit regions at war or in crisis through archive images of the 20th century.

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Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations · 1938

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

MovieDocumentary

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

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