The Film Commission Torino Piemonte will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2020. One of the most active and longest established film commissions in the country, the FCTP’s work has contributed to creating indelible impressions in film of many iconic places in the city.
The historic link between Turin and film has led, over the years, to the establishment of a bona-fide cinema cluster in the city which ranges from training to entertainment, from festivals to museum networks. One of the many festivals contributing to the cinema image of Turin, the Torino Film Festival – which this year celebrates its 37th anniversary – has established itself as an important player in the national and international panorama, proposing contemporary films open to innovation in cinematographic language, to new writers and new styles.
Another integral part of the city is the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, not by chance located in one of the city’s most symbolic monuments, the Mole Antonelliana. Its unusual structure, developing up several floors in a vertical spiral, provides the visitor with the feeling of watching a film through continuous visual and aural stimulation.
The Mole and the Museum have served cinema in a double role, as custodians of its history and as film locations: among those set here is Davide Ferrario’s 2004 film After Midnight (Dopo Mezzanotte), the story of a night watchman at the Museum who spends his shift watching silent films.
While it is a long and complex job to list all the films shot in the city, one that must be cited is Giovanni Pastrone’s cult work Cabiria, a silent movie shot in 1914 which included Gabriele D’Annunzio as a writer. Over the years the greatest directors have worked here: Michelangelo Antonioni on Le Amiche (1955), Mario Monicelli on The Organiser (I Compagni - 1963) and The Couples (Le coppie – 1971), Lina Wertmüller on The Seduction of Mimi (Mimì metallurgico ferito nell’onore – 1972), Dino Risi on Scent of a Woman (Profumo di donna – 1974) plus Scola, Verdone, Tognazzi, Comencini, in an endless list that includes Woody Allen and, recently, Matthew Vaughn.
Directors most fond of the city include Dario Argento the “master of horror” who considered Turin the “place where my nightmares fit best”. It is impossible to forget the majestic fountain in Piazza C.L.N. with the marble giant, the allegorical depiction of the city’s River Po as a bearded man, featured in Deep Red (Profondo Rosso – 1975). In The Cat o’ Nine Tails (Il gatto a nove code – 1971) and Sleepless (Non ho sonno – 2001) murder investigations lead to the Monumental Cemetery of Turin. Even Argento was eventually affected by the charm of one of the most used outdoor sets in the city, the Parco del Valentino, using its Fontana dei 12 Mesi as the background for a scene in the TV movie Do you like Hitchcock? (Ti piace Hitchcock? – 2005).