Hit by a thunderbolt that determined a career and style of life. “In my day, it made a difference whether you were born and raised inside or outside t...

This memory of his beloved Ferrara dates from the 1930s and ‘40s, and coincides with my immigrant memories as someone who came into the Ariosto secondary school every day from Copparo. The thunderbolt that hit Florestano was on the set of Ossessione [“Obsession”] the film shot by Luchino Visconti in 1942 between Pontelagoscuro and the outskirts of Ferrara, starring Clara Calamai and Massimo Girotti. It immediately sparked something special in him: “I went to where they were filming every chance I could get” he told me in 1995. After a brief period as a journalist, he would become a man of the cinema. He decided this in 1949 when he made a documentary on the tragic love story of Ugo and Parisina with his friend Adolfo Baruffi. Luigi Sturla, who had experience in silent films, and still had the lamps, a trolley, tracks and much experience, acted as cameraman. During this interview, I had expressed with admiration, how his first film which was based on Giorgio Bassani’s account of that terrible night in 1943, was extraordinarily mature. He smiled and then with his sardonic, rich voice, said “But I had already made thirty-six documentaries at that stage…”. Almost all of them on life in the Comacchio and Delta valleys in the Ferrara lowlands. The first documentary on Ugo and Parisina won a presidenza del Consiglio prize and was given cinema distribution. “I used that money to finance the second one since I had created a company pompously called Este Film”. This was 1949 and Vancini was 23 years old. By 1954, having made numerous documentaries, his profile had risen and he acted as assistant to Mario Soldati, the high profile writer-director. He helped shoot La donna del fiume [“The river girl”] and told me various funny stories about this flamboyant director who continuously played jokes on set or who had jokes played on him. The only time he was serious was the day that he silently directed the scene in which the son of the leading character drowned in the river. A gem of a film. “But I also learned camerawork from Soldati” he said “as he was a master”. And he also learned from the Modena native, Valerio Zurlini, who was the same age as him, and who assisted him in one of his most intense films Una estate violenta [“A violent summer”] in 1959. A year later he directed his first full-length feature film, La lunga notte del ‘43 [“Long night in 1943”] with Gabriele Ferzetti, Enrico Maria Salerno, Belinda Lee and Gino Cervi. The film won best first work at the Venice film festival and Enrico Maria Salerno won the silver ribbon. This was the beginning of a long career which lasted half a century: fifteen feature films in all, with very socially committed films culminating in Delitto Matteotti [“The assassination of Matteotti”] in 1973. He smiled wistfully when I reminded him of impassioned films such as Amaro amaro [“Bitter love”] shot in the centre of Ferrara with the beautiful Lisa Gastoni, or Le stagioni del nostro amore [“Seasons of our love”] shot between Mantua and Sabbioneta. He wanted to make high quality films but there was always a shortage of money, so some very worthwhile works such as La neve nel bicchiere (1984), an epic story on social and socialist issues didn’t enjoy the success it should have as it didn’t have the support of a well-known cast of actors. Insofar as possible his life in Rome was far-removed from the fashionable circuit. He was cordial and friendly, and his character was typical of his area, he worked hard, was serious, and focused on his pet topics which were history and commentary on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He wanted to help give Italians culture, or “teach” them as his illiterate farm-labourer grandfather Luigi used to say.