Hi dear ARTTMODERNMIAMI readers, I’m very happy to be part of this special magazine. We will start our cinema journey in this corner. Once a month you will be reading about the crazy world of movies. I will be writing from Rome, Italy.
My name is Livia, I’m twenty years old and half Italian and Turkish. I just graduated from Rome University Of Fine Arts in Cinema. I have made several short films since 2019. My passion for cinema started in highschool with the screenwriting of some experimental short movies and another element was taking photos. Istanbul is a very suggestive city for photography. This gave me the opportunity to participate in the Ara Güler photography competition Organised among the high schools more than 100 years of its foundation and to be selected as the second place in the competition with the photography called “layers”. (Link)
My last short film is entitled “It appeared it disappeared” (Link), is a fantasy, romantic horor. Luna meets her boyfriend Teo playing scrabble in a bar. On their anniversary, Teo finds the scrabble board game in a park and brings it to her girlfriend. As they play it turns out to be magical, everything they write becomes real and affects their characters as well. To survive the game and remain united, they will have to use all the pieces and free themselves from the curse of the anonymous writer who loves to write sadistic stories with the characters she manipulates. “It appeared it disappeared” is selected to the Tito Film Festival for the screening held in Costacciaro,Italy. Student World Impact Film Festival official selection, New Jersey and to the Scout Film Festival as Quarter finalist that will be held in Boston
A short documentary that I have done is called “WithoutNames”(https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=92PNOvd9Qx0), deals with Guido’s integration with a feline community located on the Tiber in Rome. This community becomes his family and also means to get away from his reality in solitude. Thanks to the friendship that he has made with the feline community, Guido also interacts with many people with whom he normally would not communicate.
In 2020 like many other movie directors, I have done a short movie to represent the pandemic. My short movie is called “Mutations” (Link),the protagonist Olivia is a middle-aged woman who slowly during the mandatory quarantine begins to go crazy and see the walls of the house and objects as human beings that come to life so as not to feel the weight of loneliness. Until one day as a solution she begins to talk to herself while playing of chess. The idea of the chess game is by Ingmar Bergman’s film “The Seventh Seal”, in which a chess game takes place between Antonius Block and Death. Only dreams bring the protagonist out of the dark reality. The narrative style is experimental and tends to a not entirely linear narrative because it is not based on the conception of the classical dramaturgy theorised by Aristotle according to which every drama must have a beginning, a means and an end and the parts must be between proportionate them. “Mutations” was selected at NHdocs: the New Haven Documentary Film Festivalas finalist for the online screening. (Link)
My third experimental short movie is “WE” (Link), it empathises the interaction of emotions that never disappear. It was selected to the Ca Foscari Short film Festival as finalist in the Olga Brunner Levi High School competition (Link).
The second short film that I have done is “And Again And Again And Again” (Link) is about how beauty is ephemeral and at the same time, a kind of competition. I was inspired by the famous phrase of the fairy tale “Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs” mirror mirror who is the fairest of the kingdom? ” because I wanted to emphasize that beauty can also become an obsession. Another inspiration is from Peter Greenaway,the movie “A Zed & Two Noughts” to symbolize the ephemeral. Because in a scene of this movie these apples rot at a supersonic speed. I have therefore associated the apples to the ageing of the people to whom the same thing happens. “And Again And Again And Again” It was screened at Lizbon Short-Film Rendezvous Film Festival https://www.lisbonfilmrendezvous.com/programmes, at the West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival, Cefalù Film Festival selected as semi finalist https://www.palermotoday.it/eventi/cultura/cefalu-film-festival-23-24-28-agosto-2019. html, Seyfi Teoman Short Film Festival jury encouragement prize https://sadibey.com/2019/03/01/liseler-arasi-iii-seyfi-teoman-kisa-film-yarismasi/ , Mamma Roma Short Film Festival selected as finalist https://www.youtube.com/embed/x_EzWIgjPmo at the 4:17 minute.
My very first short film is entitled “I’m Listening to Istanbul”, based on a poem written by Orhan Veli called I’m listening to Istanbul (Link). Recently it was screened at CINEM’AMOSTR, Portugal film festival. http://www.cabecave.com/cinemamostr-2022/
I hope you enjoyed reading and I will be happy if you have any comment and suggestion, this was just a short introduction of my perspective and biography. Just a little preview, the next article will be about the fantastic style of famous director Wes Anderson, who is addicted to symmetry and colour.
Livia Oya Proto
Filmmaker – Rome,Italy
