SERGIO MARTINO | Offscreen
Sergio Martino (°1938) ranks with Mario Bava and Dario Argento as one of the undisputed leading directors of giallo, a quintessentially Italian thriller subgenre characterised by brutal murders, convoluted plotting, a dash of eroticism, highly stylized camera techniques and image composition, and a thematic fascination with alienation, paranoia, and psychosis. “Giallo”, the Italian word for “yellow”, refers to the colour of the covers of pulp and detective paperbacks from which the genre first took its cue. Between 1971 and 1973, Sergio Martino directed five gialli, including “Tutti i colori del buio” and “Torso”. Hybrids of murder mystery, paranoid thriller and proto-slasher, they are intoxicating exercises in style with remarkable soundtracks, and three of them starred the director's bewitching muse, Edwige Fenech. Martino also mastered “filone”, moving outside the giallo subgenre to apply his skills to sexy comedies, documentaries, police dramas, and even a cannibal movie.
ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK
After she loses her baby in a car crash, Jane (Edwige Fenech) has nightmares about a knife-wielding maniac. Her neighbor decides a Black Mass is a solution to Jane's problems. A Polanski-esque tale about paranoia, devil worshipers, ritualistic murder orgies, and madness.
TORSO
Sergio Martino pulls out all the stops in this highly stylized, ultra-violent giallo classic about a serial killer who hides behind a ski mask to strangle beautiful young students before slicing them up with a bow saw. The many suspenseful scenes in this scary whodunit will have you gasping for air.
2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK
After a nuclear holocaust, the world has been reduced to a wasteland populated by mutants. A mercenary is dispatched to the ruins of New York to try and save the last fertile woman on earth. A thoroughly engaging post-apocalyptic delight.
CONFERENCE: ITALIAN GENRE CINEMA
Dr. Russ Hunter (co-editor of “Italian Horror Cinema”) will provide an overview of the Italian genre film, looking at the dynamics behind an industry that variously produced spy thrillers, funky hardboiled cop films, hyper-violent thrillers, gore-drenched horrors, spaghetti westerns, zany sci-fi cinema as well as bawdy comedies. Dr. Alexia Kannas (author of “Deep Red”) examines the key features of the giallo, a uniquely Italian blend of lurid violence, inventive set-piece murders, pulsating soundtracks and sitting alongside often beautifully realised visuals. Dr. Jamie Sexton (author of “Cult Cinema”) will look at the contribution that two iconic composers, Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, made to the success of Italian genre films. Their soundtracks have, somewhat unusually, taken on cult status and contributed hugely to making Italian genre cinema both successful and memorable to the ear. Finally, Dr. Louis Bayman (co-editor of “Italian Popular Cinema”) explores the poliziotteschi, a series of gritty police dramas that mixed up high-speed car chases, kidnappings, bank robberies, high-powered shootouts and angry lone wolf protagonists with a sense of style that was distinctly Italian. Followed by a roundtable with director Sergio Martino and Manlio Gomarasca (author, editor, and journalist at “Nocturno”).
THE VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS
Police inspector Giulio Caneparo (Luc Merenda) takes justice into his own hands to avenge the death of his boss, who was on the trail of a gang of bank robbers. All bets are off and anything goes in this indictment of Italian fascism and political chaos.
THE SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A MINOR
After the brutal murder of an underage prostitute, an undercover agent infiltrates a Milanese gang and finds a trail leading to the highest echelons of power. An essential link between giallo and poliziottescho, directed by Martino as an unpredictable roller coaster ride full of spectacular chases.
CHOPPER SQUAD
In Rome, a cop (Luc Merenda) unwittingly discovers that employees of the Italian Ministry of Defense are being murdered, and their deaths made to look like suicides or accidents. Inspired by the Golpe Borghese, a failed right-wing coup d'état in 1970.
SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD
When an anthropologist goes missing in the jungle of New Guinea, his wife and her brother set out to find him, only to run into a tribe of torture-loving cannibals... This infamous “video nasty” was banned for years in the UK due to its explicit sex, gratuitous violence, and alleged animal abuse.
Offscreen photostream
