Al Pordenone Docs Fest – The Voices of the Investigation, preview of the debut work of the Julian director Franco Giraldi The Karst. Giraldi passed away on December 2, 2020, he lived in a nursing home in Santa Croce, on the Carso. A short film produced by Documento Film and shot on the Trieste Carso during the Christmas holidays of 1959. Considered lost by the director himself, until three years ago. When the undersigned was lucky enough to find a 35mm copy, in excellent condition, preserved in the fabulous archives of the Cineteca di Bologna. The restoration was carried out by the laboratory L'Immagine Ritrovata of Bologna and supported by Cinemazero of Pordenone.

A very personal, bittersweet 'western' fresco of his homeland by Giraldi, at the time a former film journalist who had emigrated to Rome and was working as an assistant director. Joseph Pinori – later director of photography for Nanni Moretti, Marco Tullio Giordana, the Taviani brothers – immortalizes through indelible images the hard daily work of the fishermen and farmers of Santa Croce/Sveti Križ. A rapidly depopulating village, squeezed between the border with Tito’s Yugoslavia and the slopes overlooking the Gulf of Trieste.

Callisto Cosulich, a well-known critic from Trieste who also emigrated to the capital, composed a lyrical commentary off-screen. Claudio Magris, a long-time friend of Franco Giraldi, introduced the screening at Cinemazero of Pordenone thanks to an emotional video interview. “I was extremely pleased to find and restore the The Karst. A precious film, in which I met the Giraldi of always. I must say that 'I am' a friend of Franco, I cannot say 'I was' a friend of Franco, because death has so much power, but it does not have it on friendship. In this documentary, but also magnificently in his fiction films, the Carso is a true protagonist. From A year of school until his masterpiece, The frontier. For me and Giraldi, the Carso becomes an inseparable character from the history of that era: a harsh, Slataperian territory, in contrast with the 'old Europe' of the city of Trieste, where the boys still address each other formally.

The Venetian historian Alessandro Cuk, an expert on frontier cinema, recently presented his new book at Kinoateljer in Gorizia: The Istrian Trilogy in Franco Giraldi's Cinema, Alcione Editore. A detailed analysis of the Central European cultural roots of the director of The Karst.

Lorenzo Codelli
Cinecittà News – 17/11/2021

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Last November 5th, the presentation of Alessandro Cuk's new book "The Istrian trilogy in Franco Giraldi's cinema" (Alcione, Venice 2021) at the Casa del Ricordo in Rome, curated by the provincial committee of the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia, was enriched by the memories of friends of the director from Gorizia who passed away a year ago and by the critical observations of experts who highlighted the merits of Giraldi's work.

Introducing the evening, Prof. Donatella Schürzel, President of the provincial committee of Rome of the Anvgd, also recalled that this year the Anvgd has carried out many initiatives to remember Alida Valli, whose birth centenary is celebrated.

Cuk, film critic and national vice president of Anvgd, then presented his work as a tribute to Giraldi for the sensitivity shown in transferring to the big screen works of fiction set in Istria or Julian (A Year of School, The Red Rose and The Frontier), alternating his reflections with comments by the critic and writer Diego Zandel, with the irony of Olivia La Pegna's youthful memories and with anecdotes of work on the set told by Elisabetta Fogazzaro. Also present in the audience were costume designer Gianna Gissi, set designer Lorenzo Baraldi and photographer and journalist Bernard Bedarrida.

The conference can be viewed on the YouTube channel of the Multimedia Documentation Center of Julian, Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian Culture: The Istrian Trilogy in Franco Giraldi’s Cinema – Casa del Ricordo (Rome)

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