Icon of the ’60s, Benedetta Barzini was a muse of artists like Andy Warhol, Richard Avedon. Feminist, mother, professor of Fashion Anthropology, in eternal struggle with a system that for her means exploitation of women. At 75, tired of roles and stereotypes, she wants to quit everything, disappear. Troubled by this radical project, her son Beniamino starts to film her, determined to pass on her memory.
The director: “My mother’s will to “disappear” came like a boutade. What can you do if your mother says she wants to leave forever? Deciding to make this movie was my attempt to find an answer. I started filming her as when I was a child, until I arrived in that intimate space where I’d always known her. I made it with and against my mother, convinced that the exposition of our conflict (personal and political) could celebrate those questions that I had never stopped asking me”.
Beniamino Barrese (1986) studied philosophy at the Statale University of Milan, International political Economy at King’s College in London and Cinematography at the National Film and Television School in beaconsfield, UK. Disappearance of My Mother is hir first full-length film as a director.
LA SCOMPARSA DI MIA MADRE (Italia, 2019, 94’). Director, Beniamino Barrese; with Benedetta Barzini, Beniamino Barrese; editing, Valentina Cicogna; cinematography, Beniamino Barrese, Brian Fawcett; music, Aaron Cupples, Miguel Miranda & Jose Miguel Tobar; producer, Filippo Macelloni; esecutive producer, Beniamino Barrese, Giovanni Storti, Lorenza Garzella, Haley Pappas, Matt Ippolito, Bryn Moser; production, Nanof in collaboration with Rai Cinema, Raiot Films; supported by Mibac Direzione Generale Cinema. Realized with the support of Programma Sensi Conteporanei Toscana per il Cinema. Distribution Reading Bloom, Rodaggio
