Medea
16mm, 32 min. (in Post-production )
The film is an interpretation of Franca Rame’s adaptation of Euripedes tragedy “Medea”. Medea’s voice is presented as a self analytical monologue. The making of the film is exposed through cinematic devices and is interwoven, as a reflexive journey of juxtapositions, throughout the filmmaker’s documentation of his relationship with his mother during the making of the film. The film presents the mother as subject, operator and performer due to the reflexive nature of the cinematic lens.
CAST
- Medea: Joy Scimè
- Mother: Vincenza Cirano Mistretta
- Filmmaker: Vincenzo Mistretta
- Chorus: Rosa Alcalà, Mavis Wolcott, Anna Maria Campagnola
- Jason: Vincent G. Mistretta
- Jason’s Lover: Mila Hess
- Medea’s Children: Joseph Pecoraro, Jessica Pecoraro
- Father: Giuseppe Mistretta
LOCATION
The film Medea has been shot predominantly in Buffalo, NY and Fort Erie, Ont. There are also scenes shot in Sicily, Italy.
- Buffalo, NY – FiddleHeads Restaurant, Romeo’s Bakery & Cafe, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, The Buffalo Historical Society, Private Residencies in North Buffalo
- Fort Erie Canada – Erie Beach
- Sicily – The Town of Aspra, The City of Bagheria, The Town of Monreale, The City of Palermo, The ruins of Segeste
BASED ON
This film is based on a play with the same title by Italian play writers, 1997 Nobel Price winner, Dario Fo and Franca Rame. Fo’s and Rame’s Medea is adapted from the Greek tragedy by Euripides. My film tells the story of Medea in modern day. It focuses on Medea’s thought process which leads her to realize her subordinate condition as a woman and ultimately to murder her children for the purpose of spawning the creation of a new woman. Fo’s and Rame’s play takes Euripides tragedy and creates a reading of it through the microscope of European feminist theory, such as Luce Irigaray and her feminist theories based on language. According to Irigaray, at some point, in the development of language, the masculine gender became the more valorous. In turn, the role of the female, and that which she engages in as a woman, is deemed menial to that of a man’s role. Therefore, motherhood is looked upon as a non-valuable activity, an act which is seen as non-productive according to today’s social construct based on economic value. Medea, in her act of killing her children, shatters the idea of mother as servant to man’s needs, and as overseer of his goods.
Franca Rame, who performs and co-wrote “Sex? Thanks, Don’t Mind if I Do!”, is the co-author of many dramatic works, including “All Home, Bed, and Church” (1977), “The Open Couple” (1983), “Female Parts” (1986), “A Woman Alone and Other Plays” (1989), and “Seventh Commandment: Steal a Little Less” (1992). An actress, dramatist, and lecturer of international renown, Ms. Rame was born to a family of puppeteers who have been practicing their art for several generations, and began her acting career at the age of eight. She joined Dario Fo in the theatre in 1951 (and married him in 1954) and has since collaborated with him as stage performer, writer, and editor for dozens of plays and monologues.
Together Fo and Rame have established a worldwid reputation for biting satire in their writing and performances. The dangerous political issues that have been subjects of their theatre include corruption in the Catholic Church and the Italian government, police brutality, abuses in the prison system, violations of human rights, the Mafia, rape, and the denial of Italian women’s access to divorce and abortion.
Drawing on traditions ranging from the commedia dell’arte to puppetry, clowning, and storytelling, Fo and Rame have subjected every institution, political party, power broker, corrupt organization and controversial law in Italy to their formidable satirical powers. Over the years, they have been censored, banned, rebuked, denied visas – and played to packed houses all over the world. (text from www.amrep.org)
Euripides – Athenian tragic playwright lived from ca. 485 BCE to 406 BCE; Euripides began his career as a tragic playwright in 455 BCE; his extant plays include: Alcestis (438), Medea (431), Children of Heracles (ca. 430), Hippolytus (428, first prize), Andromache (ca. 425), Hecuba (ca. 424), Suppliant Women (ca. 423), Electra (ca. 420), Heracles (ca. 416), Trojan Women (415, second prize), Iphigenia among the Taurians (ca. 414), Ion (ca. 413), Helen (412), Phoenician Women (ca. 410), Orestes (408), Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis (after 406, posthumous first prize), Cyclops (date unknown, possibly ca. 410).