The Italian artist Lorenzo Mattotti (Brescia, 1954), author of works such as El Señor Espartaco or Estigmas y Fuegos, has presented his first feature film, The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily, an adaptation of the book by the writer and humanist Dino Buzzati.
For Mattotti, the deceased novelist in Milan in 1972 “is part of my culture: his images and his way to tell mystery influenced me very deeply when I was young”, in this case, this book “seemed to me a marvellous combination of adventures and ghosts, with an atmosphere characterised by the strange and fabulous of the author”.
They story of how the bears finally invaded Sicily to get the Bear King’s son back is actually a parable about colonisation, cultural appropriation and the despotic use of power whose potential took him to the section Un Certain Regard in Cannes.
The author of the post for the Cannes Festival in 2000, and collaborator of The New Yorker and Le Monde, has explained why he chose this work and how its process was since then. “The first graphic ideas were metaphysics and surrealistic, and came from the original work, but then we added the European and Mediterranean light concept, which is the same as that of Seville”, has declared the author making a catcall to the Andalusian capital. He obtained this eloquence thanks to the colour, a tool chosen by the Italian without any fears. “It means power and joy, and it is an element of communication that, together with the culture of the Italian spectacle, defines the film”. According to the Italian, The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily delights in a linearity and rhythm we have provided, but with the maximum care to not transform it into another film”.
In addition, he has pointed out that “I wanted to use brightness to create rich spaces and contrasts, but also a space for emptiness”.
Mattotti studied architecture before becoming a graphic artist. He has also sunk deeper into the melancholic background of Buzzati: “He had a fatalist sense of men, overall when he lost his relationship with nature”. However, in the novel adaptation “we wanted to open a new possibility in order to make boys and girls think in a positive ending”.
In the film industry, Mattotti had already collaborated in the animated segments of Eros, by Wong Kar Wai, Soderbergh y Antonioni in 2004 and directed Peur(s) Du Noir in 2007 together with other important comic artists.
