Italian composer Nicola Piovani is in Tehran to perform for the 36th Fajr International Film Festival on Wednesday.
The special guest of this year’s edition won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for the movie Life Is Beautiful and has a history of collaborating with prominent filmmakers such as Federico Fellini, Taviani Brothers and Marco Bellocchio. At 6:30 pm Wednesday, he is scheduled to perform a concert at Vahdat Hall – a selection of pieces previously made for a number of feature films.
Iranian government officials, 200 guests from Italian embassy in Tehran, university scholars and a number of filmmakers whose movies are competing will attend the one-off musical concert. Iranian maestros Shahram Nazeri and Hafez Nazeri are also attending the special program, which will be covered by the press and media.
Before the concert at 5:00 pm, Vahdat Hall will also host a workshop, titled Italian Music, with Nicola Piovani. This is a great opportunity for 70 Fajr Club members to meet with the instructor and get a feel for his teaching style and skills.
Nicola Piovani (born 1946) is an Italian light-classical musician, theater and film score composer, and winner of the 1998 Best Original Score Oscar for the Roberto Benigni film La Vita è Bella, better known to English-speaking audiences as Life Is Beautiful. Among his more popular works is the score for the Federico Fellini film Intervista, his second of three collaborations with the famous director, the others being Ginger e Fred (Ginger and Fred in English) and La Voce Della Luna (The Voice of the Moon). Years later, he composed a ballet titled Balletto Fellini.
In 2000, his Academy Award-winning score for Life Is Beautiful was further nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media category. In light of his recent work with French directors, notably Danièle Thompson, Philippe Lioret, and Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, the French Minister of Culture gave him the title of Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres on 21 May 2008 at the Cannes Film Festival.
To date, Piovani has over 130 film scores to his credit, including films such as Slap the Monster on Page One (1972), The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974), Flavia the Heretic (1974), Le Orme (1975), A Leap in the Dark (1980) The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982), and Kaos (1984).
With director Reza Mirkarimi at helm of 2018, Fajr Filmfest continues to herald stronger comebacks from Asia, Europe and Middle East. Whatever one says of Middle East cinema and its power rankings, the region’s best and most powerful showcase for cinema is, has been and for all foreseeable time will be this festival, which runs in Charsou Cineplex and other venues in Tehran until April 27.
