The cinema in Fornaci has seating for 250, last night all those seats were taken plus another 100 people standing cramming the aisles and hugging the walls and at least another 100 disappointed cinemagoers were turned away as there was just physically not enough space for everybody. The long awaited David Melani film, Natalino had its premiere last night and what a triumph it was for David and his Albatross Lead Production company. In an age where more and more people are watching films on a small screen or on a computer and above all watching it alone, last night really did show the power of cinema on a large screen and with a large public.
It was rather like going back a few generations to cinema on a Saturday morning with people in the audience shouting out encouragement, whistles and comments in all the relevant places during the showing. In short a shared community event and in a certain sense that pretty much sums up the whole concept and working method behind David Melani and his Albatross Lead Productions. With a long cast list – all actors drawn from the local community, all the technicians on the film and postproduction resourced locally and the whole film shot using locations in this area, it has been a home grown affair.
What we saw on the screen last night looked like a film with a budget of hundreds of thousands of euros, with literally hundreds of people taking part including German and American soldiers moving in motorised convoy through this area in wartime. In fact David and his Albatross Lead Production company had managed to create a full-length feature film on a budget of 1/10 of those perceived figures. Not only that but also producing DVDs of the film and as we reported earlier on this week, the book of the film.
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Before the film opened there were some short speeches from Rolando Bellandi, assessore al turismo della Comunità Montana, Valerio Amadei, assessore al sociale del comune di Coreglia and also appearing in the film and tenente colonnello Vittorio Biondi of the Brigata Paracadutisti della Folgore who filed in some of the historical background to the events in this area along the Gothic line during the Second World War.
We first started reporting on the making of this film this back in February of last year. In that article we talked about a new name to add to the list of artists working in this area – the film maker, David Melani.
He was making a strong reputation not just with his directing or his editing skills but also with his drive, purpose and all-round organisational abilities as he had gradually put together over the last couple of years a complete team dedicated to film making using local actors and technicians.
His feature length film lasting an hour and a half “Natalino” is based around a comic strip drawn by Nazareno Giusti involving the tragic story of a small boy injured during the war in 1944.
A short trailer can be seen here
In March 2009 they were filming in Barga before moving on to film in Ghivizzano Alto, Borgo a Mozzano and Ghivizzano. This August that year, they were back once more filming in Barga using the church at Loppia as the backdrop to one of the final scenes in the film.
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There is considerable interest in this area being generated around the making and a showing of the final finished film with a number of heavily populated facebook groups set up by fans eager to see Natalino on their screens.
Taking full advantage of the new social networking tools available via the internet – the director David Melani is one of just a handful of facebook users in this area who have a list of facebook friends hovering around than 5000 mark.
A short interview (in English) with David Melani recorded last week at the press conference for the launch of the film.