BENE! VITA DI CARMELO, LA MACCHINA ATTORIALE

Italy | 2023 | 54 min

On a bare and scarcely lit stage, Filippo Timi performs passages from “Sono apparso alla Madonna,” the autobiographical text written by Carmelo Bene and published in 1983. Iconoclastic, brilliant, scandalous, provoking, ambiguous. Considered by many the greatest Italian actor of the 20th century, Bene was an elusive and unclassifiable figure, but he remained loyal to a single, great imperative: to be the art to which he consecrated himself – drama – all the way through. A portrait of a genius and subversive artist made by going back on his life and career and on his words and the comments of those who worked with him and got to know him, from Lydia Mancinelli, unforgettable protagonist of Nostra signora dei turchi, to Raffaella Baracchi, the artist’s last wife, and Salomè, his daughter and conservator of the foundation dedicated to him. Against cinema, against everything and everyone, even himself: it is deeply moving to see this Bene again. (a.s.)