(Finance) – Last April 29, 2024, at the Ministry of Culturethe minister Gennaro Sangiuliano presented the Strategic plan for the development of photography in Italy and abroad for the three-year period 2024-2026 and the public notice “Photography Strategy” promoted by the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity (DGCC) of the cultural ministry.
The first three editions saw overall 93 beneficiaries for a total of almost 4 million 300 thousand of resources assigned, and for the fourth edition it was decided to increase the investment bringing it in just one year to 2 million 700 thousand euros.
Sangiulian expressed the clear desire to “increase the energy and resources that the Ministry of Culture allocates to photography, which has long been neglected by state institutions. Photography is a tool for personal, family and collective narration: the history of our nation also unfolds through shots that have told us about decisive moments in our story. It’s a real art form and has a dual function: it is able to express situations, feelings, environments, characters but it also has the ability to tell stories”.
Words that coincide perfectly with the intentions of Peter ChelsomBritish director who in over 30 years of career in Hollywood has directed comedies such as “Funny Bones” with Jerry Lewis (1995), “Serendipity” with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale (2001) o “Shall We Dance?” with Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez and Susan Sarandon (2004) and which has been adopted for years by a small village in the Lunigiana area, Fivizzanoof which he also became an honorary citizen.
The director has chosen Forte dei Marmia well-known seaside resort in Versilia frequented by local and international VIPs during the summer, as the setting for his latest film, “Security” (2021) starring Marco D’Amore, Maya Sansa, Silvio Muccino and Fabrizio Bentivoglio and Forte dei Marmi is also the location of his first photographic exhibition with the evocative title “Dream Role”.
A selection of 50 photographs that capture moments of daily life, characteristic places, theatrical scenes, but above all faces, expressions and dreams will be exhibited at Fort Leopold Iiconic place of the Versilia municipality, from June 22nd to July 14th next to take the viewer on a journey through life, career and visions of the British artist.
Chelsom combines shots with actors like Jerry Lewis, Jennifer Lopez, Diane Keaton, Charlton Heston, Gary Oldmanto ordinary people immortalized in their daily routine, places of his childhood, film sets and posed portraits, making the ordinary dialogue with the extraordinary, the magic of the set with everyday life of a morning spent on a bench in a park.
With the curatorship of Beatrice Audrito and the patronage of the Municipality of Forte dei Marmi, Dream Role tells of Chelsom’s passion for photography; a passion born even before cinema, as he himself explains: «before he died, my father gave me a Kodak Retinette 1B for my thirteenth birthday. Suddenly, everything became photography. I was obsessed with it. It’s the reason I became a director.”
The images of Chelsom’s solo show reveal it sharp and ironic look of the English director telling the public the cinematographic “behind the scenes”, with well-known faces and not just those caught in moments of pause, reflection or leisure on the set. The exhibition thus becomes an opportunity to retrace, backwards, the films that brought about the director’s success but also represents a precious opportunity to think about the dream role we would like to live compared to the status that life has assigned us.
Also ending up in the Guardian with the announcement of the exhibition event in Forte dei Marmi, Chelsom plays with his subjects, he good-naturedly challenges them to think differently: “Part of the exhibition is called Dream Role Project, in which I invite people to create the dream role they have never had or could ever hope to have. It has to be self-deprecating, ironic, tinged with absurdity, a turning point. I asked to Gary Oldman to play Cary Grant in North By Northwest I wanted to find subtextual meaning – like, the demons are always there to chase us, we’re always on the run And, apart from the suit and tie, Gary looks nothing like Cary. That’s kind of the bad dream.”
In addition to Oldman, Adrian Dunbar and Tara Fitzgerald who have already participated in Peter Chelsom’s project by casting themselves in their dream roles, others will be added interpreters of the Italian panorama who, by accepting the English director’s provocation, will reveal what role they would like to take on the set or in life. The result is a refined selection of photographs with a sarcastic, ironic and sometimes irreverent style which return that authentic look at the world that we find in Peter Chelsom’s works, from cinematographic to photographic production.