Join us for a special screening of the groundbreaking 1911 Italian silent film, L’Inferno, accompanied live by Stefano Maccagno, piano; and Furio Di Castri, double bass, performing the mesmerizing original musical score composed by Maestro Maccagno.
L’Inferno, loosely adapted from the first canticle of Dante’s Divine Comedy, was the first full-length Italian feature film ever produced. The film’s depictions of hell closely followed those in the engravings of Gustave Doré, which were familiar to international audiences, and employed groundbreaking special effects for its time.
Silent with live musical accompaniment. (66 minutes)
The film is screened as a collaboration between Cinema Ritrovato on Tour, Dept. of French & Italian, International Lens film series, Blair School of Music, Max Kade Center, Vanderbilt Center for Languages, Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago.
Free to attend; tickets required for admission.
About the performers:
Stefano Maccagno is a pianist, composer, conductor, and professor of orchestration of music for images. He is the official composer of the National Cinema Museum of Turin, for which he has composed and orchestrated the music for numerous silent cinema masterpieces including Cabiria, Royal Tiger, Maciste, The Whispering Chorus, and Blood and Sand. He has been pianist accompanist of the biggest masterpieces of silent cinema at the Cannes Film Festival, Bologna international film festival Il Cinema Ritrovato, Lumiere Festival in Lyon Pordenone Silent Film Days, and Cinémathèque Française.
Furio Di Castri is a self-taught double bassist originally from Milan. Italy. Recording his first album in 1973 at the age of 17, he has worked as a recording artist, composer, and busy sideman for more than five decades, most recently dedicating himself to his own projects and to composition for orchestras, dance, theatre, and contemporary art performances. Since 2001, he is professor of double bass at the Jazz Department of Turin Music Conservatory. He has held acclaimed double bass master classes around the world.