In Panzano, made with Ulrike Molsen, a group of older people who live in an impoverished, rural home, are observed (and orchestrated). They impersonate a series of oblique characters, retelling isolated fragments of personal melodrama in a fiction of their own making. The film defies, as much as it documents, the mistreatment of these people by the Italian mental health system. This system remains as external to the film itself as any psychological diagnosis of its subjects, while explaining aspects of its content or its forgotten origins. The film specifically stages this as a scenario of social misrecognition, in which the protagonists are no longer the 'leftovers’ of the Italian anti-psychiatric movement but are taken seriously in their own social construction.
Panzano, 2000
16mm film, color, magnetic sound, 22 min
Images 1, 2: Film still © Rosa Barba
Panzano, 2000 has been on display at the following locations:
Temporäre Kunsthalle, Berlin, 2010
Fondazione Teseco, Pisa, 2002
Panzano, 2000 has been screened at the following locations:
Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, 2014
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, 2013
International Film Festival, Rotterdam, 2000
Cinematexas, Austin, Texas, 2000 (director's award)
FCMM Filmfestival, Montreal, Canada, 2000
International Filmfestival, Odense, 2000
Internationales Filmfestival, Dresden, 2000