This weekend, the Pyle Center will be the location of an important conference on European Cinema. Organized by the Center for European Studies, the conference will host two of Europe’s most important filmmakers as well as a group of international cinema scholars.
The first of the filmmakers to speak will be Mweze Ngangura. He studied at an art school in Brussels and then returned to Zaire to become a fellow in three higher education institutes of Kinshasa.
In 1980 he made his first documentary, “Cheri Samba,” a portrait of a young, popular painter from Kinshasa. In 1987, he wrote and co-directed “La vie est belle.” His 1999 film “ID/ Piéces d’identites” was the winner of the most prestigious award in African cinema, the Etalon del Yennenga at FESPACO 99. He is the founder of “Sol’Oeil Films” in Kinshasa and “Film Sud” in Brussels.
Ngangura will give a speech entitled, “My Experience as an African Diaspora Filmmaker” Friday at 3:15 p.m.
Also, Italian filmmaker Vito Zagarrio will speak Saturday afternoon. Zagarrio is a film director and cinema historian, with a Ph.D. from New York University. He teaches film studies at the Universities of Florence and Rome III. He is the director of two feature-length films, “La donna della luna” (1988) and “Bonus malus” (1993), as well as several short features, including “Un bel d? vedremo” (1989), “Intolerance” (1996) and “Elogio del sudicio” (2000). In addition to film work, he has directed many documentaries and specials for television. Zagarrio is also an author and has published scholarly books on Frank Capra and Francis Ford Coppola.
Also speaking at the conference are film scholars from universities across Europe including the University of Belgrade and the University of Paris.
Director of the Center for European Studies Patrick Rumble organized the conference because he wanted to provide a forum for important figures in European cinema to come together and discuss the state of their art.
“This is an opportunity for the leading scholars of European cinema to get together and exchange opinions on the evolution of European film over the last 10 years,” Rumble said.
Rumble feels that the social and cultural changes that Europe is currently undergoing are reflected in their contributions to cinema.
“There is a new situation in Europe of great cultural wealth and mixing, and the films currently being made there are reflecting that,” he said.
This weekend’s conference will not include film screenings but will focus on discussing the situation of film in Europe. However, there will be series of screenings related to these talks during the Wisconsin Film Festival in April.
