KEEP CALM AND POTA

KEEP CALM AND POTA

Apr 13, 2024 | ART, ART, CULTURE, CULTURE, WOMEN, WOMEN

Keep calm and pota!

Don’t say you’re not already smiling thinking to Keep calm and pota.

I immediately lit up, also because Keep calm and pota is curated by Piöcc’s Café.

Café! A coincidence, or rather, I would directly say a sign.

A sign that I immediately grasped when I contacted the Teatro Centro Lucia in Botticino Sera.

Yes, you read that right: theatre.

Elena kindly explained that their artistic direction in recent seasons has been proposing a review of dialectal comedies from the Brescia area entitled ‘Èl bel del dialet a teàter’.

As I have already mentioned, I am very fond of dialect. 

Keep calm and pota is therefore a dialect comedy, and Cafè di Piöcc a theatre company.

Elena also helped me contact the director: Manuela.

In two words: a revelation!

Quoting Queen Agatha:
A clue is a clue, two clues are a coincidence, but three clues make a proof.

Keep Calm, Coffee and Friendship. 

The founders of the Café di Piöcc are three friends who meet in the parvis of the cathedral church in Montichiari.

Money is tight and friends watch the gentlemen eat pastries and drink wine, but they can only afford water from the fountain: the Café di Piöcc then, that is, the poor man’s café.

At Cafè di Piöcc, stories, gossip and historical facts are told.

From these tales, one of the first theatre companies in Brescia was born in 1970, a troupe that was also the subject of a university thesis.

Manuela joined the company, gradually performing various tasks: props girl, prompter, actress with a small part, assistant director.

Until one evening in the rehearsal room she picked up a book from which an envelope came out with a letter that no one had ever seen.

Destiny, magic, what would you call it?

In this letter, Beppe Boschetti, one of the three founding friends, had expressed his wish to leave the company in Manuela’s hands.

A story made up of people, a long journey made up of extremely remarkable theatre works such as I tre innocenti (The Three Innocents), inspired by news events, or Semplicemente donna (Simply Woman): a red chair and 49 changes of clothes representing the stages of life up to menopause.

And yet settings and periods vary while the common denominator remains the titles that are idioms, e.g. Petost che peji l’è mei insi or Ogné come la sàpes stada.

All the way to Keep Calm and pota.

Pota is the word that unites Brescia and Bergamo, an intercalary that, pronounced with the typical accent, is always very nice.

The author had the intuition to combine pota with the expression keep calm, linking up with Freud’s truth, the female Ego interjecting itself with the Super Ego, and communicating a message: love wins.

Speaking of messages, the Cafè di Piöcc also collaborates with the municipality of Montichiari for social work with the Legality in short project. 

It can therefore be said that Cafè di Piöcc keeps calm but is unstoppable!

Many many compliments and a special thanks to Manuela Danieli.

LIKE THE BIRDS OF CINDERELLA’S DRESS

LIKE THE BIRDS OF CINDERELLA’S DRESS

Jan 20, 2024 | MOVIES, WOMEN, MOVIES, WOMEN

Like the birds of Cinderella’s dress … is the comparison Sabrina Impacciatore used during an interview at the Emmy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

Listen:

I really like this way of her being ironically crazy.

This attitude of laughter brings good humour, don’t you think?

The perfect friend for messing around …

Speaking of friendship … have you ever seen “Amiche da morire – Friends to Die For?”

I would say that Sicily is a congenial place for Sabrina: the season of The White Lotus for which Sabrina received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series is filmed in Taormina.

In the interview Sabrina tells that her dress was fitted the night before by tailors like the birds of Cinderella’s dress, and also declares that her victory is to be there, but we can say that another great shot is her participation in the upcoming film In the head of Dante with Al Pacino and John Malkovich.

Who knows, maybe the Fairy godmother has a hand in it… 🙂

And you? Have you ever lived a fairy tale?

I could tell I live perpetually in the mess, but isn’t it the real fairy tale?

Gianni Rodari wrote:
Where are the fairy tales?
There is one in everything:
in the wood of the coffee table,
in the glass, in the rose.

Where can you see the fairy tales?

THERE IS STILL TOMORROW.

THERE IS STILL TOMORROW.

Nov 4, 2023 | MOVIES, WOMEN, MOVIES, WOMEN

There is still tomorrow which sees the directorial debut of Paola Cortellesi is the film that won the Audience Award, Special Jury Prize and Mention as Best First Work at the Rome Film Festival. 

Paola Cortellesi doesn’t need to be introduced, I always remember one of her gags in which she ironically listed all the things she has done, which are really so many and very different from each other, but which have the same feature in common: they are all done well.

I thank Elisa and her proposal: we went to the movies together fearing that we would have to use tissues to wipe tears and instead we mostly surprised ourselves.

The Friends.
In the movie: Delia and Marisa.

Emotion, however, was not lacking.

I, for one, was moved by the portrayal of a mother’s love for her daughter, who is played by Romana Maggiora Vergano in the film.

A love above all things, a love for which nothing is impossible, a pure and unwavering love.

Fragility and strength in a maelstrom of endurance and determination in which the ability to carry the crushing weight of a long interminable series of verbal and physical injustices and bullying, is catalyzed in the resolute will to seek a better destiny for Marcella.

Mother and daughter.

A crushed mother and a model daughter who does not understand Delia’s submission.

Succumbing and resisting at the same time, in a dance that is broken melody, is rock, is hip hop rap, is retro.

Marcella does not understand, but she will.

Marcella will look at her mother Delia and see the affirmation of a seemingly simple but extremely important gesture as a right, as a beginning.

Every change has a beginning.

There is still tomorrow represents “the music that changes” in a literal sense: I cannot fail to mention the repertoire songs from the soundtrack:
Aprite le finestre Fiorella Bini
Nessuno Naked Music
Perdoniamoci Achille Togliani
A bocca chiusa Daniele Silvestri
M’innamoro davvero Fabio Concato
La notte dei miracoli Lucio Dalla
Calvin The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
B.O.B. – Bombs Over Baghdad Outkast
The little things Big Gigantic featuring Angela McCluskey
Swinging on the right side Lorenzo Maffia and Alessandro La Corte
Tu sei il mio grande amor Lorenzo Maffia, Alessandro La Corte and Enrico Rispoli.

Surprising, isn’t it?

Surprising as what you don’t expect from There is still tomorrow: the ending.

Indeed, in my heart I hoped that Delia’s project would not be the obvious one, but at the same time I would not have guessed an epilogue like the one with which Paola Cortellesi invites everyone to a beautiful reflection.

Light yet explosive, simple yet disruptive, just like Delia, just like Paola.

Yes because Delia is Paola, she is Marcella, and she is our grandmother.

Delia is so many lives of giving up, Delia is so many years of suffering.

Like nothing at all.

THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS

THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS

Jun 3, 2023 | BOOKS, BOOKS

The Eight Mountains is both a literary and cinematic success.

Again I owe the reading to Monica and I hope that the movie will not disappoint me as it often happens when I watch movies based on books.

I heard a lot about The Eight Mountains with reference to male friendship or more precisely manly friendship.

Of course The Eight Mountains tells about mountains, as well as it tells about a Friendship of the kind we should all be privileged to experience in life.

However, the prevailing reflection that I retain after reading this book is another.

Beyond the powerful and unrelenting beauty of the mountain, I was impressed by its role within the story in the father-son relationship.

The mountain is typically silence; instead, I read it in this book as the only dialogue to patch up a deep generational and emotional incommunicability.

Sometimes we love totally, we love with a love written even in our DNA, yet we do not know how to show it.

This kind of love is blatantly obvious to those who can observe it as uninvolved spectators and yet it is hidden from the eyes of those with too close a perspective that paradoxically creates a distance.

Am I wrong?
Perhaps this view is entirely personal.

Have you read the book?
Written by Paolo Cognetti and published by Einaudi in 2016.
Strega Prize 2017.

Or have you seen the movie?
Directed by Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix Van groeningen in 2021.
Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival 2022. 
David di Donatello for best film 2023. 

An old Nepalese man told me about the eight mountains …

The man picked up a stick with which he drew a circle in the ground. It came out perfect; you could tell he was used to drawing them. Then, within the circle, he drew a diameter, and then a second perpendicular to the first, and then a third and fourth along the bisectors, resulting in a wheel with eight spokes. I thought that, having to arrive at that figure, I would start from a cross, but it was typical for an Asian to start from the circle

– Have you ever seen a drawing like that? – he asked me.

– Yes, – I answered. – In the mandala.

– Right, – he said. – We say that at the center of the world is a very high mountain, Sumeru. Around Sumeru there are eight mountains and eight seas. This is the world for us.

In saying this he drew, out of the wheel, a small point for each ray, and then a small wave between each point. Eight mountains and eight seas. Finally he made a crown around the center of the wheel, which could be, I thought, the snowy summit of Sumeru. He pointed the stick at the center and concluded, -And let’s say: will the person who went around the eight mountains have learned more, or the person who made it to the top of Mount Sumeru?

In your opinion?

BELLUNO SOLIDARITY ON AIR

BELLUNO SOLIDARITY ON AIR

Apr 8, 2022 | PODCAST

ANG in Radio #morethanbefore Belluno Solidarity on Air is the 100% Belluno Web Radio dedicated to solidarity thanks to funds from the National Youth Agency.

Belluno Solidarity On Air is therefore the voice of the guys from the Keep Calm & Go Volunteering project who were kind enough to host me in one of their podcasts!

In case you want to listen to us, you can find the podcast in the first comment.

Listening to my voice again I wonder how those who hear it perennially can bear me laughing

However, it seems that the feeling that leads to disowning or almost despising one’s own voice is quite widespread, and reading the causes explained by Focus I discovered a nice tweet by Giuliano Sangiorgi from Negramaro who tells how the first few times he didn’t even recognize himself and I was a little relieved.

On the other hand, the importance of hearing the volunteers explain their project and tell about the whole series of initiatives and activities they carry out is undoubted.

I am so very happy with this experience.

For this I thank them warmly for how they welcomed me and for the friendship that grows under the sign of our Keep Calm.

From their Committee of Understanding a fantastic understanding was born which has One more cup of coffee as its soundtrack  and an exchange of interesting and valuable tips as a common thread.

In reiterating the esteem I have for them, I once again congratulate them on their work.

To Ariela, Edisona, Hamudi, Lorenzo, Mehdi, Sophie, Veronica I dedicate:

There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.
Ralph H. Blum

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