Colour, exterior day: panoramic shots of the city of Teramo; children in their father’s car in the act of driving; more panoramic shots of the city. Interior, colour, family Christmas: the exchange of presents between family members: children and adults show the presents to the camera; the family at the table during lunch.
Archives: Storie
The family films of a couple of intellectuals and artists: the journalist and poet, later director and video artist, Gianni Toti (Rome, 1924-2007) and the painter Marinka Dallos, his first wife. Most of the family films, shot by both spouses, were made between Marinka’s native Hungary and their city of residence, Rome. In particular, the filming in Hungary relates to trips organised by the couple to visit Marinka Dallos’ family in Lorinci, as well as trips organised to other locations in Hungary. Many of these films feature Gianni Toti with Marinka’s grandson, Csaba. There is also a group of films of trips made by the couple on holiday to various places: Tunisia, Bulla Regia, Tunis, Kairouan, Gerba, Houmt Souk, Spain, Pamplona for the San Firmino festivities, Barcelona, Seville and Granada, Paris, Belfast during the Parade of the Orangemen, Padua, Venice, and Rome and the surrounding area, Ostia Lido, Fregene, Nemi, the Porta Portese market and Fiumicino airport. Another core of films relates to Gianni Toti’s 1972 on-the-spot visits to Syria for the film E di Shaul e dei sicari sulle vie da Damasco (And of Shaul and the assassins on the road to Damascus) and the auditions for actors on a Roman terrace by the photographer Rolla. Other films were shot by Gianni Toti as a special correspondent for the magazine “Vie Nuove”: shot on 1 May 1964 in Revolution Square in Havana (Cuba). Six years of Cuban independence celebrated with a big parade with footage of the crowd during Fidel Castro’s speech. Compare Che Guevara.
The user can explore the film collection through a wide selection of sequences shot by Gianni Toti and Marinka Dallos. Digitised film materials can be viewed in chronological order or via the menu. Short texts, inserted in titles, captions or superimposed on images, introduce, contextualise and give precise indications about people, places and situations. The information was gathered through careful research, documentation and cataloguing. Le informazioni sono state raccolte attraverso un’attenta ricerca, documentazione e catalogazione.
(texts edited by Karianne Fiorini)
The story of the Quaranta family is one of migration, large and small, throughout the first half of the 20th century. Agostino Quaranta is a young non-commissioned officer in the army who has moved to Bologna for work. Here he meets Jolanda, who came to the city at a very young age to work for a wealthy family. The two immediately fell in love and Agostino even gave up going to Canada for Jolanda, where his entire family now lived. Amidst a thousand difficulties, the two finally managed to marry and overcome the tumultuous wartime period unscathed, settling permanently in Bologna.
Having always been passionate about photography, Agostino only began filming at the end of the 1950s. The 23 8mm reels of which it is composed are entirely dedicated to the family, but the domestic environment is not always that of a typical Bolognese home. His is in fact an extended family, in which, together with his children Enzo and Maria Grazia, his nieces, nephews, cousins and in-laws also spend long periods of time. The opportunity to film is often provided by family encounters in the most diverse places: Calabria, where Agostino was born, and the Apennines where Jolanda comes from; Rieti and San Giorgio a Cremano, where his son Enzo also attends the NCO school; Toronto and Niagara Falls where Agostino’s parents and some of his siblings live and where, in 1964, the family can finally reunite after years of separation. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
A varied and unusual family geography thus emerges as a backdrop to the walks that little Maria Grazia continuously takes for her father Agostino’s film set.
The user can explore the film collection through a wide selection of sequences shot by Agostino Quaranta. Digitised film materials can be viewed in chronological order or via the menu. Short texts, inserted in titles, captions or superimposed on images, introduce, contextualise and give precise indications about people, places and situations. The information was gathered through careful research, documentation and cataloguing. Le informazioni sono state raccolte attraverso un’attenta ricerca, documentazione e catalogazione.
(text edited by Chiara Petrucci)