04/12/2012 - A Pier Paolo Pasolini double chases the poet and filmmaker’s ghost in the urban setting of his Ragazzi di Vita novel. Special Jury Award at the Turin Film Festival

"People living in the area had evil inside of them. And Pasolini had it too," reflected Alberto Testone, a fifty-year-old Roman dental technician, also a Pier Paolo Pasolini’s double. Testone is the star and co-director (with Stefano Petti) of Fatti corsari, which won the Special Jury Award in the Italian section at the Turin Film festival which came to an close on Saturday night.

Written and directed with Pierpaolo De Sanctis, who also took care of editing, the documentary is the sublimation of a man’s dream who not only wants to be an actor, but is also obsessed with Pier Paolo Pasolini, the poet and filmmaker. This is where the attempt to “enter into the character” begins, in order to feel its “weight and incumbrance,” and find something in common with it. Alberto Testone was born and still lives in the Fidene part of Rome, where Pasolini set his Ragazzi di Vita novel. For Alberto, following in the footsteps of the poet means going back to the last place Pasolini spent time in before dying: a restaurant called Biondo Tevere. It also means meeting the picturesque band of characters who worked with the director. It finally means playing Pasolini in comedies and films, and being tempted to eventually escape from it all, from the overall setting and from a ghost which has become unbearable.

Isqat Al Nizam - At the Regime Border by Antonio Martino was another film selected in Turin. It presents a new way of documenting reality, in what was called The Pixelated Revolution by Lebanese theatre director, actor and writer Rabih Mroué, who was also present in Turin. He was referring to the images filmed by phones or amateur cameras, spread through social media during the Syrian uprisings. Through the perspectives of activists, who witnessed the killing of thousands of people, Antonio Martino studied the Syrian government’s brutal repression, melding his own point of view with images gathered from different types of equipment.

(Translated from Italian)