Marcantonio Lunardi
Italian videomaker
biography
http://and.nmartproject.net/?p=4824
Interview: 10 questions
1. Tell me something about your life and the educational background
I graduated in documentary direction at the school of “Festival dei Popoli†in Florence. I trained with the teachings of Daniele Gaglianone, Leonardo di Costanzo and Marie-Pierre Duhamel Muller, to name a few. Following the specialization courses of Michael Glawogger, Sergei Dvortsevoy, Thomas Heis, I could deepen the study and the practice of filmmaking in its most difficult aspects.
2. When, how and why started you filming?
After the riots in Genoa, in 2001, I felt the need to tell the things I had seen through the video. The photograph, which I had practiced until then, it was not enough anymore. Since that time I have not stopped to shooting and making movies.
3. What kind of subjects have your films?
My films deal with politics and contemporary society. These are the issues on which I specialized during my studies of direction and this kind of argument has become food for thought even in my experimental videos and video art films.
4. How do you develop your films, do you follow certain principles, styles etc?
During the day I get hit by a series of news that stimulate my imagination in the formation of some iconic images. These images are the basis on which to start building the film. I seek to tap into the iconography of our times to create a simple and minimal message. My mood helps me to find suitable sounds and lights right for the film.
5. Tell me something about the technical equipment you use.
Before I shouted movies with my Panasonic DVX 100BE in SD then I switched to the Panasonic AF101 HD 1920×1080 25p. I do the editing with Final Cut 7 or Premiere CS6. The video and audio post-production is made in collaboration with some colleagues (and friends) who use After Effects and Protools.
6. What are the chances of the digital video technologies for creating art using “moving images†generally, and for you personally?
Working in digital decreased the costs of making films allowing a greater chance to experiment with new narrative techniques and then to open new frontiers in creative video. The reduction in costs has increased the diffusion of good cameras at affordable prices, therefore the possibility to tell is increased for many filmmakers. The worst thing is the lack of schools that allow to approach these tools with intelligence. Not everyone understands that for making a film is not only necessary to have a nice camera but is indispensable a culture of cinema and art that in Italy, for example, is missing.
7. How do you finance your films?
My films are financed by private companies and cultural foundations. I approach my work exactly as it deals with the production of a fictional film.
8. Do you work individually as a video artist/film maker or do you work in a team?
if you have experience in both, what is the difference, what do you prefer?
I work individually and I have a technical team that supports me in the stages of production. When we work on the set we are a maximum of three people, but the set is open, there are no limits to the audience, so anyone can see from the outside. The ideal for me would be to work alone in shooting phase, because my creative process is instinctive, but I like to work as a team in post-production phase.
9. Who or what has a lasting influence on your film/video making?
I’ve always been influenced by the masters of documentary cinema as Artavazd Pelechian, Frederick Wiseman and Michael Glawogger who was also my teacher. But there are works that I consider essential to my training directorial as Berlin, die Symphonie einer Grosstadt by Walter Ruttmann or Nostalgia de la luz by Patricio Guzmán.
10. What are your future plans or dreams as a film/video maker?
In 2013, I’m going to make three video works that tell the cultural crisis in Italy. Today, not only in Italy, culture is spread only through television that shape politically and socially the majority of citizens in my country is 70% of Italians. All this is frightful for me. My dream is to create a film production company that can support the work of myself and my colleagues with a focus on video art with social and political topic.
link for my works: