«Summer at Casa Berto», home of beauty

John

By John

Every year, that house opens up and welcomes writers, artists, actors, scholars and a motivated and enthusiastic audience. Every year, «Estate a Casa Berto» returns to celebrate the pact between the writer Giuseppe Berto and the place he had chosen and wanted to love, in Capo Vaticano, on the Coast of the Gods. The eighth edition of the festival directed by Antonia Berto and Marco Mottolese will open on Thursday: four days, until Sunday 10th, of beauty in many forms, of memory that is woven, of memory and imagination, of threads and bridges to the future. Of great protagonists, called to evoke, to reinforce with their contribution the magic of a special place. Without ever forgetting the territory, its many beauties.

«Remembering the name of the author of the “Dark Evil” every summer to hypothesize new horizons, mark new routes in the territory by involving artists, writers, filmmakers and journalists – comment the directors of the Festival, created with the patronage and contribution of the Municipality of Ricadi and of private sponsors – this is the line we have been following for eight years, celebrating, in a mythological place such as Capo Vaticano, Berto’s intuitions, his literary revolution, and involving a community that always manages to give something special in what we call ” family festival” because the show is not only on stage but in the magic of the land that hosts us and in the spontaneous and sincere conviviality between those who perform and those who watch”.

In that same house where the writer composed his masterpiece, “The Dark Evil”, in just two months, facing Sicilywhich is fifth and aspiration, with the profile of its smaller islands, this year will gather Emanuele Trevi, Premio Strega 2021, Giancarlo Loquenzi, host of the Rai program «Zapping», Anna Ammirati, beloved actress, Rodrigo D’Erasmo, musician ” cult”, Valeria Montebello, podcaster and journalist, the actor Domenico Pinelli, Luca Lucini, director who loves Calabria, the scholars Nick Ceramella and Raffaele Gaetano.
Trevi, also a great expert on Giuseppe Berto, will inaugurate the Festival on Thursday 7th, presenting his new book “La casa del mago” (Ponte alle Grazie), in bookshops from 6th September: a book centered on the relationship with his father, who he was a very famous Jungian analyst and is the “magician” of the title. Journalists Anna Mallamo, from the Gazzetta del Sud, and Marco Mottolese will talk with him – about fathers and sons, about “magic” and inheritance. Then the film club, with the film “The De Filippo brothers” (2021) by Sergio Rubini, about the illegitimate children of Eduardo Scarpetta: one of the protagonists will be present, Domenico Pinelli, who in the film is Peppino De Filippo. Again fathers and sons, and the inextricable tangle of relationships of love, competition, revenge, devotion.

Friday dedicated to Calabria, experienced and told, with the presentation of Francis Thomas Galway’s books «Domenico’s New Year. A young man from Tropea” (Meligrana) – in the presence of the curator Nick Ceramella, teacher and expert in American and Italian-American literature – and Raffaele Gaetano, historian and philosopher, “Edward Lear. The walking travel journal in Calabria” (Laruffa), interviewed by the scholar Rosie Costantino. Closing with «Me and my brother» by Luca Lucini (who will be present), a romantic comedy entirely shot in Calabria, in Altomonte (Cs), for months at the top of the Prime video charts. Saturday in the garden of Berto’s residence the lectio magistralis of the ethologist and academic of the Lincei Enrico Alleva: «Animals to be protected in Calabria». The journalist Giancarlo Loquenzi, host of Zapping, Rai Radio 1, will introduce him. He and Marco Antonellis will participate in a tribute to Andrea Purgatori, the great journalist who recently passed away, with a focus on the Pecorelli case with the episode of Atlantis «Kill Pecorelli! Investigation of a crime”, a theme particularly dear to Purgatori.

Last evening dedicated to lovewith the journalist and podcaster Valeria Montebello, bestseller on Spotify with the podcast «The sex of others», produced by Chora Media, who will discuss dating and sexting, new social relationships and old relational difficulties with Anna Mallamo and Valeria Bonacci, and finally one show of great charm designed specifically for the festival: «Carne nuova», ensemble for music and voice with the composer and violinist Rodrigo D’Erasmo (Afterhours, Le Luci della Centrale Elettrica, Nidi d’Arac) and the actress Anna Ammirati (“ Mare Fuori”, “The longest night of the year”) with verses by three very powerful poets: Nina Cassian, Wisława Szymborska and Patrizia Valduga.
Berto would have liked it.