The first experiment of educational video is Videoscais, a production dating back to 1991 promoted by the Chair of the Faculty of Modern Languages of the University of Udine and consisting of a collection of episodes featuring the members of a family. The video that is directed by Giancarlo Velliscig, was created as part of a bilingual Italian-Friulian educational project. Two years later, in the same framework, Renato Calligaro produced Lis striis di Gjermanie, a video taken from the story by Caterina Percoto with the same title, in which the artist creatively combines his drawings with actors in the flesh. In 1995 Dorino Minigutti produced Bielscrivint, the story of Miute, a little girl that gets lost in the “world of writing” and escapes thanks to the help of an Agane (an ondine, a mythological figure). Dorino Minigutti is a producer of documentaries and feature films, especially those dealing with social issues ( disability, drug addiction, Aids) and is also a scriptwriter. In 1999 he produced Intrics, a fantasy story of wizards, elves, pixies and children, all captivated by a machine that generates proverbs and nursery rhymes , whilst the ogre Mastiefumate does everything in his power to stop it. For the same project, in 1997 Giuseppe Bevilacqua and Mara Udine had produced Linea dreta, linias dretas taken from a story by poet Leonardo Zanier who played himself in this “fantasy plot around a brief story set in Carnia”.
If we also consider La sentinella della patria (1927) we could probably state the very first form of Friulian cinema is represented by documentaries. And documentary production played an important part also later on. In 1996 Marco Rossitti (lecturer of history of cinema) produced Il liutâr (The lute-maker) a sort of poetic tribute to this noble profession that is still practised in our territory. In any case, already back in 1988, Antonio Magliocchetti had produced Jo o soi stade dome une volte al cine, an interview-film that won the second prize at the Mostre. Carlo Della Vedova and Luca Peresson, in 1999, explored the reality of the Friulian community of Colonia Caroya (Argentina) through Farcadice (also broadcast by Ladin television) and, in the same year Benedetto Parisi – who, in its production in Italian had canvassed the reality of Roms and the new immigration – depicted in Tony the humanity of an unusual, a road artist called Tony Zavatta. In 2001, the same author produced Gnovis dal Brasîl based on the figure and life choices of a Friulian missionary who lives in one of Brazil’s poorest areas.
For the sake of completeness, worthy of notice is La fontana di Bosplans (1997) by Michele Marcolini and Vuere dome di ricuarts by Gianni Fachin (award-winning at the 7th edition of the Mostre).
The works by Remigio Romano that, through filmed image, reconstructs a bygone world, should deserve special mention. In Une zornade a seselâ (1993), he reproduces field labour as it was performed back in the ‘30s and ‘40s and, in Il purcit (pig) (1997) through the words of Mauro Corona, he recalled the meaning and importance of this animal for rural families.
In 1997 Massimo Garlatti-Costa produced Il piligrin, a piece of work half way through experimentation, provocation and fun. In previous years, the director who now lives in and works in Great Britain, had produced with the “Slapagnots” group (Roberto Copetti, Massimiliano Lancerotto and Fabio Venuti) a screwball comedy film entitled Tele Frico (1993) and later, two other research works entitled La sielte (1994) and Precarie Armonie (1995). But Garlatti produced his most complete work in 2001, Buris, libars di scugnî vignî , a film that was extremely successful in a commercial cinema theatre. It is a 38-minute comedy that depicts an imaginary village of Friuli where, to overcome the economic crisis, an unemployed person sets up a pornographic film production company that quickly becomes one of the leaders of the film industry worldwide.
Buris opens the doors to a new season of the Friulian cinema, a cinema that starts feeling ready to overcome a merely local vision and capable of representing the most diverse situations and genres. But, as we will see later on, this leap in quality is not always totally free from ambiguities.
In this context, in 1999 Lorenzo Bianchini shot I dincj de lune, the first horror film in Friulian. The film, featuring a style that will become the trademark of its author, combines typical aspects and backgrounds of the territory and elements that characterise the classic horror genre. In 2001, Bianchini produced Lidrîs cuadrade di trê, a full-length film featuring three high-school students . After realising they made too many mistakes in a test and fearing they might fail, the three students decide to break into the school at night to replace their papers before the teacher corrects them. But unexpected events occur that night and the students find out things they weren’t supposed to know.
The film, was screened several times, always reaping a lot of success, and was also reviewed by a French magazine.
Bianchini also completed and presented another of his films, Custodes bestiae, where, however, the dialogues in Friulian only feature in a small part of the film.
In any case, in the new context referred to above, we have the feeling that the use of the language is often linked to an instrumental understanding, i.e. that when the language is used being worried about “being faithful to a specific reality” rather than seeing it as a communication code, with all that that choice could entail. In other words, we are under the impression that the author is before an “object” that does not belong to him” but “only belongs to the reality he is illustrating”. Paradoxically, if on the one hand there is a flourishing of contents, if one considers genres, if one examines new settings, on the other hand the language remains chained to a self-referential dimension, condemned to remain a simple expressive ornament rather than a communication vehicle.
The years from 1999 to 2001 represent a rather exceptional time for our film production in terms of both quantity and quality. In fact, the films mentioned earlier on, such as Pieri Menis, ricuarts du frut; Farcadice; Tony; Lidrîs cuadrade di trê; Gnovis dal Brasîl; Buris, libars di scugnî vignî, are from that period. But also works like La muart cui çucui by Giorgio Milocco and Andrea Nardon (1999), a 22-minute film that, playing on a dark black-and-white, radiates extraordinary expressive power. It tells the story of a youngster’s first day at work. An isolated factory in the middle of uncultivated fields, an unhealthy work environment, a tyrannous employer set the frame of his misadventures, a sort of nightmare, that the young worker must undergo. The film is both fantastic and symbolic (the old lady with the clogs that the young boy meets, the flock of crows, a factory that from the outside looks like an abandoned building) and also realistic (the world of work and its machines, its rules and its furious pace) .
In 2001, director Manlio Roseano directs a film taken from a novel by Sergio Cecotti, Il tierç lion: a detective film containing metaphysical elements, another example of genre films. However, Il tierç lion, a 16 mm film was shot in Italian and only after was it dubbed in Friulian and distributed in Betacam format in that versions.
The last edition of the Mostre (2003) awarded a prize to the feature film by Remigio Romano Âstu mai pensât di sposâti...in Comun? a parody of the “Promessi sposi” (“The Betrothed”) set in today’s time (that will also be broadcast by the regional RAI); it highlights Cuatri cjantons par une “francje” by Carlo Damasco (featuring Giuseppe Battiston; for a story written by Giovanna Zorzenon which won a prize at the Concors par Tescj Cinematografics del 2002); Lûs distudadis by Nicola Fraccalaglio and Thomas Marcuzzi and finally, as regards the section dedicated to children, La roie di Cussignà, the film by Liviana Calabrò.
To conclude this path we cannot but mention the film by di Christiane Rorato Vuerîrs de gnot, su lis olmis dai Benandants, presented at the d’Essai cinema in Udine at the end of 2003. Drawing upon the book by historian Carlo Ginzburg, the documentary is a research on what is left today of the Benandanti, the “good wizards” that in 500 were tried by the Inquisition and, more generally, on the traditions that are still alive in contemporary Friuli.