China – Kaos, by the Taviani brothers to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Pirandello’s birth

The film Kaos directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Italy, 1984, 157’) will be screened with Chinese subtitles in the Auditorium of the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of Pirandello’s birth. The masterpiece of two of the most renowned authors of Italian cinema will be shown at 7 p.m. on 7 June. The film, which features Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia, consists of four episodes and an epilogue. The leitmotif linking the four episodes is a black crow hovering over Pirandello’s Sicily with a bell hanging around its neck. The image is drawn from the Nobel Prize laureate’s “Novelle per un anno” plus a story made up by the two directors but still drawing inspiration from his short stories entitled “Una giornata” and “Colloquio coi personaggi”. The film was awarded the David di Donatello prize in 1985. Loyal to their particular poetics, the Taviani brothers chose four stories on life in the countryside and peasants, humiliated and debased by their struggle against poverty, injustice and superstition.