Event

A cinematic celebration of 750th anniversary of the birth of Dante Alighieri

International House Philadelphia and Penn Center for Italian Studies present a Dantean film program in the occasion of the 750th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s birth, which was celebrated last year.

The program will be introduced by Peter Lešnik, PhD. candidate in Italian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His main fields of concentration are modern and contemporary Italian literature and World cinema. He has published articles on Italian 19th and 20th century literature and holds a Graduate Certificate in Cinema Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

This event is free and open to the public.

Sunday, March 27 @ 5pm

L' Inferno | Dante's Inferno
(Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, Giuseppe de Liguoro , Italy, 1911, digital, 71 min, b/w, silent w/ musical accompaniment)

The Italian epic came of age with Giuseppe de Liguoro‘s imaginative silent film of the Inferno. Loosely adapted from Dante Alighieri and inspired by the illustrations of Gustave Doré. The film took over three years to make and was the first full length Italian feature film ever made.

Sunday, March 27 @ 7pm

La Divine Comédie
(Simon Côté-Lapoint, Canada, 2014, HD digital, 62 min, color)

Adapted from the 14th century Italian classic, the Divine Comedy is an oneiric musical trip without words, a thrilling experimental mix of animation, video art and imagination.

Simon Côté-Lapointe is a pianist, keyboardist, composer, improviser and videographer. Since 2010, he has devoted himself to the creation of experimental music and video, creating more than twenty art projects combining various video techniques. He received in 2011 a research grant to create an audio-video exploratory work combining 2D and 3D animation, video art and puppetry as well as electronic, electroacoustic and acoustic music.