Tribute to Steno: tonight at the Busca theater the “futile show”

This evening at the Civic Theater of Busca the Cultural Association Le Cercle Rouge is promoting an evening entitled “Fuori il loot 4.0. The futile exhibition”, dedicated to the director Steno.

“The futile exhibition – explain the organizers – more than an exhibition it wants to be a tribute to the writer, illustrator, battist, screenwriter and director Stefano Vanzina aka Steno (1917-1988). The title of the evening refers to Diario futile di lui (1942-43), a Zibaldone that piled up, in a sort of pop opera ante litteram, reflections, jokes, newspaper clippings and images”.

In those years, when most of his friends and colleagues had given satire a “committed” turn, Steno decided to remain popular by apparently maintaining a more disengaged profile: “His oblique and caustic gaze instead becomes stronger where the author stubbornly remains faithful to himself and to his own idea of ​​cinema: a cinema with the public and for the public”. He distances himself from the Italian comedy, which according to him ‘wallows in the things of the house’, preferring to dredge stories in the streets, or rather in the small chronicle of the pink columns. Despite being accused of indifference, he demonstrates that he doesn’t take any ideology seriously other than the absurd human comedy of real life.

The appointment is starting at 21. The evening’s program is divided into four distinct but functional moments to discover Steno’s personality. It begins with an interview with Michele Sancisi, Sky Italia journalist and writer, who introduces the topic of futile diaries and outlines a profile of Steno as a director and screenwriter in relation to the Italian cinematographic culture of the last century.

Interpretive readings of excerpts from the diary Sotto le stelle of ’44 follow with actors on stage and accompanying music on the piano. “Sotto le stelle del ’44” is another futile diary that covers the period of the summer of 1944, when Steno had just returned to Rome from a clandestine trip to Naples. A more introspective diary than that of ’42-’43 because in the interval of time that separates the two diaries the situation has radically changed: there have been the fall of Mussolini, the armistice, the flight of the king to Brindisi and the German occupation. This diary, written in an accounting book and found by his family, was published in 1993 with the title chosen by his sons Enrico and Carlo Vanzina of Sotto le stelle del ’44.

Intermezzo with ballet curated by Federica Giusto aka Red Fryk Hey dedicated to one of the numerous parodies of Steno: Arriva Dorellik from 1967. A parody of the comic Diabolik, but at the same time also of the Pink Panther series. An unbridled visionary farce that is totally abstracted from reality, full of bizarre and grotesque gags that at first glance seem farcical and disengaged but which reveal a surreal, not just comic, creativity.

The highlight of the evening will be the screening of the documentary Steno preceded by a conversation with the writer Nicola Manuppelli, guest of the evening, subject writer and screenwriter together with the director Raffaele Rago. The documentary, presented at the Rome Film Fest, is an affectionate and moving portrait dedicated to Stefano Vanzina, one of the most prolific directors of Italian cinema.

Editorial board

The dates of the event: Civic Theatre, 21.00