The Research Center for International Relations proposes an analysis that recognizes the role of the Sammarinese Vittorio Valentini
The films shot on Mount Titano in the middle of the last century, together with the contribution of a Sammarinese who worked in Cinecittà from the 30s to the 50s, are explored in depth in the new notebook of the Research Center for International Relations of the University of the Republic of San Marino, now available online.
Titled “The role of film culture in Europe and the advent of international cinema in San Marino”, the text analyzes the experiences of two films that saw the Titan as the location for two films. The first, in the context of the events related to the refugees of the Second World War, is titled “The Unknown Man of San Marino” and saw in front of the cameras, among others, the actors Vittorio De Sica and Anna Magnani, with the direction entrusted to the Polish Michał Waszynski. Space also for “The Prince of Foxes”, with Orson Welles and Tyrone Power, produced by the American 20th Century Fox.
In the notebook, edited by professor Maria Elena D'Amelio, the role of the architect and set designer from San Marino Vittorio Valentini is highlighted, already involved in projects such as the blockbuster “Ben-Hur”, also involved in the Hollywood productions “Quo Vadis?” and “Roman Holiday”. The academic writes: “Thanks to the growing internationalization of the contents and circumstances of production of his works, he was instrumental in proposing San Marino as a film location”.
Hence the scenes projected on the big screen and set on the Titan: the author, on the basis of documents and newspaper articles, reports for example that in the film “The Prince of Foxes” the medieval towers “became the location of the main battle of the film”, establishing themselves as a “natural set for the story of the siege and liberation of a city”. The Titan, “as an authentic place, here serves as a signifier for something more than a simple picturesque landscape. Its emotional geography and its history – continues the scholar – become an integral part of the plot of films focused on freedom and peace”.
Stressing the importance of cinema as a “vehicle of cultural and identity expression, particularly within the European context”, D'Amelio also outlines the context of the continent's industry with the description of a broader framework represented by the process of “cultural policies of the European Union”, which “with their support to the audiovisual sector play a crucial role in ensuring that cinema continues to be a driver of integration and social cohesion, contributing to the formation of an aware and participatory European citizenship”.
The notebook contains the contents of a lectio magistralis given by D'Amelio on the occasion of the inauguration of the film festival “San Marino in Europa, l'Europa a San Marino”, in the presence of the EU ambassador Alexandra Valkenburg, held at the Cinema Concordia in Borgo Maggiore.
