Loyola University Chicago

Date: SEPTEMBER 29, 2009 (29 SETTEMBRE 2009)

Time: 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Place: Loyola University John Felice Rome Center
Via Massimi, 114-A

Contact: Tel. (39) 06-355-881 

Open to the Public /Aperto al Pubblico
/// Free Entry / Ingresso Libero 


Film screened in English with Italian subtitles / Film in lingua inglese con sottotitoli in Italiano 
 


ORGANIZER and HOST

Organized by /Organizzato da:


The John Felice Rome Center (JFRC) (Italy)
Loyola University Chicago (United States)  
 


For further information, please contact (Per ulteriori informazioni, contattare):


Anne Wingenter (Rome) awingen@luc.edu  (39) 333-760-8404

EVENT OVERVIEW

Free and open to the public, the event will examine the Sacco and Vanzetti case with an eye to both the past and the present, because the issues the story raises continue to resonate in so much of what is going on around us today.

The centerpiece of the evening will be first Rome screening of Peter Miller’s award-winning documentary “Sacco and Vanzetti” (screened in English with Italian sub-titles). The event will also include the presentation of a recent short music video by rapper Kento (Francesco Carlo) on the topic, and a musical performance by the Italian Old-time Trio who will perform pieces from the era on traditional instruments. After the screenings and performance a roundtable of participants and invited scholars, including Peter Miller, Kento, Fabio Refrigeri, director of the trio, and Flaminio DiBiagi, noted film scholar, will explore the significance of the story from a creative, historical and cultural perspective.

Peter Miller’s documentary, “Sacco and Vanzetti,” brings to life the story of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrant anarchists who were accused of a murder in 1920, and executed in Boston in 1927 after a notoriously prejudiced trial.  The ordeal of Sacco and Vanzetti came to symbolize the bigotry and intolerance directed at immigrants and dissenters in America. Millions of people in the United States, Italy and around the world protested on their behalf.  Eighty years later, their story continues to have great resonance, as civil liberties and the rights of immigrants are again under attack in the United States, which continues to be a magnet for immigrants, as well as in Italy, which has recently become one.

Italian rapper Kento, inspired by the Sacco and Vanzetti story, focuses on the different ways they confronted their shared destiny:

• You can choose to refuse utterly that which you cannot confront …
• Or you can choose to fight to the end….
• To the judges who will condemn you in any case, you can offer vehement argument.
• Or simply silence. You can be like Nicola Sacco or like Bartolomeo  Vanzetti.
• You can be aware that, in various moments of your life, you have been one of them, and that deep in your being, both are living.

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For more information, or to schedule interviews with conference participants, please call Anne Wingenter at +39 333 760 8404 or e-mail Anne at awingen@luc.edu

Press kit for the documentary Sacco and Vanzetti available at: http://firstrunfeatures.com/sacco_press.html

“Sacco o Vanzetti” – Kento at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKyr53kQxTU

BIOGRAPHIES of PARTICIPANTS

Born and raised in the outskirts of Reggio Calabria, Francesco “Kento” Carlo took his first steps during the years of the ‘ndrangheta wars – years that also saw the last of the great social struggles conducted by the PCI in the working-class quarters of the city. In his musical DNA are the dialect ballad-singers and their minor epics in rhyme; among his first musical choices Italian cantautori and the revolutionary rap of Public Enemy, which at the beginning of highschool are joined by reggae: a love that – many years later – would be consolidated and clarified by travels in Jamaica and contacts with students of Rastafarian mysticism. In the first half of the '90s, activism in the student movement and as a militant in the sinistra antagonista brought him almost naturally to the microphone: these were the years of combat rap, a legacy which continues today and influences his debut as a soloist  “Sacco o Vanzetti”.

But first there was time for important musical experiences, including a period (now concluded) with the Roman group, Gli Inquilini, who between 2003 and 2007 produced 4 albums, and an ongoing collaboration with the Reggio Calabria group Kalafro Sound Power, whose sound combines hiphop and reggae. Their debut disc “Solo l'Amore was issued in the summer of 2007.

There was also time to leave – reluctantly – Reggio for Rome, for appearances all over Italy, time to finish his studies.  Time to transform a passion for cinema into serious work, time to willingly pass up sparkling opportunities.

Time to make mistakes and to construct strong certainties.

Time to grow.

Time to write.

Susana Cavallo is professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Loyola University Chicago, and currently serves as associate director of Loyola’s John Felice Rome Center.  Her administrative experience includes having served as director of Latin American Studies, graduate program director of Spanish, and chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.  A specialist of 20th century Hispanic poetry, women’s narrative, feminist theory, and poetics and prosody, Professor Cavallo is also a poet, translator, pianist, and composer.  She has translated into English works by Claribel Alegría, José Hierro, Susana March, and Francisco Brines.  She is the author of La poética de José Hierro (1987) and coeditor of Estudios en honor de Janet Perez: el sujeto femenino en escritoras hispánicas (1998).

Flaminio Di Biagi, full-time Professor of Italian at Loyola University Chicago Rome Center since 1989, graduated from the University of Rome with a doctorate in comparative literature, holds a Ph.D. in Italian literature from New York University and a Master of Arts in Romance Languages from the University of Washington. He has published three books: “Sotto l’arco di Tito: le ‘Farfalle’ di Gozzano”, an essay of literary criticism on the early 1900s poet Guido Gozzano; “Il cinema a Roma: guida alla storia e ai luoghi dei cinema nella capitale”, a volume on the history of film production in/about the city of Rome from the late 19th century to the end of the 20th (it also contains a helpful appendix of sites in or near Rome where various films have been shot); “La Roma di Fellini” a study on the famous Italian Director. Dr. Di Biagi has taught Italian (Language, Film, and Literature) in several American Universities (most recently as Visiting Professor at the College of Charleston, at Loyola University Chicago, and at St. John’s University), he has published articles on Italian writers and Cinema, various essays on Italian-American studies, and has translated classic authors such as Conrad (“Heart of Darkness”, “The Secret Sharer”, “Tales of Unrest”), London (“The Game”), and D.H. Lawrence(“Kangaroo”) from English into Italian. He also edited critical editions of Herman Melville's “Billy Budd”, and Guido Gozzano’s “Verso la cuna del mondo: lettere dall’India”. He often writes for “America Oggi” (an Italian-American daily), is a member of the Editorial Board of “The Waters of Hermes” (a literary journal), director of a film-series for La Finestra Publishing Co., and collaborated with the Museum of Cinema of Rome.

Peter Miller directed and produced the award-winning documentaries SACCO AND VANZETTI, released nationally in theaters in 2007; A CLASS APART, which aired on the PBS series AMERICAN EXPERIENCE; and THE INTERNATIONALE, shown on PBS and screened at over thirty film festivals. He has been a producer on numerous documentaries by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, including the epic PBS series THE WAR and JAZZ, as well as the Peabody Award-winning FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Peter has also been a producer on many other acclaimed documentaries, including THE UPRISING OF ’34, PASSIN’ IT ON (winner of twenty film festival prizes), and the Academy Award-winning AMERICAN DREAM. He is currently directing and producing a new documentary, JEWS AND BASEBALL: AN AMERICAN LOVE STORY.