Alberto Grifi

Directing

Alberto Grifi

Born — Died

1938-05-29 — 2007-04-22

Place of birth

Rome, Italy

Known for

Directing

Credits

59 titles

Alberto Grifi (Rome, 1938–2007), a painter, director, cameraman and photographer, is a fundamental figure of Italian experimental and activist cinema. In the first half of the 1960s he worked on the production of documentaries, and in 1964, together with Gianfranco Baruchello, he made La verifica incerta, followed by many other experimental films. With the cult film Anna 1975 he was one of the first to experiment with the use of videotape in an independent film. In 1976 – together with a group of ‘video hoodlums’ – he produced documentaries rarely screened today on youth protests in Milan, Bologna and Rome. Throughout the 1980s he shot industrial documentaries in the United States, Latin Ame…

Known for

Fuori campo di Anna – Presentazione a Venezia, settembre 1975 poster
7.0

After its premiere at the Berlinale Forum in February '75, Anna was also presented in Venice, the film was followed by a very well-participated debate, alongside Alberto Grifi there was Adriano Aprà, and among those present was Tatti Sanguineti, the author of a very articulate critical speech. The footage of this meeting is part of the 30 cassettes containing the video footage from which the film was edited, thanks to the work of Anna Maria Licciardello, the Cineteca Nazionale with the Fondazione Grifi and the La camera ottica laboratory in Gorizia.

Fuori campo di Anna – Presentazione a Venezia, settembre 1975

2025

Anna poster
6.7

A documentary ostensibly about Anna, a young drug addict taken off the streets by one of the filmmakers. Through her they attempt to explore the social issues from their hippie perspective, instead they create a revealing, uncomfortable self-portrait and inadvertently raise questions about documentary film-making.

Anna

1975

KomaK poster
NR

Alberto Grifi, an experimental filmmaker, becomes aware of the experiments conducted by Dr. Kanudo, who, following in the footsteps of T. Leary and A. Huxley, documents the effects of psychotropic substances on the human mind. In collaboration with engineer Norsen, Dr. Kanudo invents a machine capable of visualizing mental images. The scientist's goal is to document, in a mirrored manner, the mental experience under the influence of ketamine, a substance known for its hallucinogenic and dissociative effects. Dr. Kanudo agrees to have the experiment filmed. The filmmaker also takes on the task of finding two patients to take ketamine and attends a rave party, where he documents the use of the substance in such gatherings. Meanwhile, in the laboratory, everything is progressing well until an unexpected reaction from the second patient to the administration of the drug and a raid by the authorities threaten to derail the situation.

KomaK

2002

No artwork available
NR

"A partire dal Dolce brings together "portraits-interventions" of a dozen or so thinkers, artists, friends of Gianfranco Baruchello (including extremely rare footage of Jean-François Lyotard), who comment on the concept of the "dolce" (gentle/soft/sweet)" Claudine Eizykman, Les Rendez-vous du Cinéma Expérimental, February 2000

A partire dal dolce

1979

Transfert per Camera verso Virulentia poster
6.0

On a theatrical work by Aldo Braibanti, the special effects used in an attempt to construct a new visual grammar capable of describing "the new geography of boundless perceptions and imaginaries, the emergence of memories from the very distant phylogenetic past of our animal ancestors, a gift of psychotropic substances."

Transfert per Camera verso Virulentia

1967

Long Live The Orgonauts! poster
2.0

In the distant future, a spaceship inhabited by a group of young descendants of a "subversive" minority who escaped the destruction of the Earth, recovers a capsule in which the hibernating body of a reactionary warmonger has been preserved, who after having caused war and death, it has abandoned the now unlivable Earth. The visual experimentation aimed at the liberation of the gaze is intertwined with psychedelic visions on the one hand and with the orgone theory of Reichian memory on the other.

Long Live The Orgonauts!

1970

Film credits

2000s · 8 titles

KomaK poster
NR

Alberto Grifi, an experimental filmmaker, becomes aware of the experiments conducted by Dr. Kanudo, who, following in the footsteps of T. Leary and A. Huxley, documents the effects of psychotropic substances on the human mind. In collaboration with engineer Norsen, Dr. Kanudo invents a machine capable of visualizing mental images. The scientist's goal is to document, in a mirrored manner, the mental experience under the influence of ketamine, a substance known for its hallucinogenic and dissociative effects. Dr. Kanudo agrees to have the experiment filmed. The filmmaker also takes on the task of finding two patients to take ketamine and attends a rave party, where he documents the use of the substance in such gatherings. Meanwhile, in the laboratory, everything is progressing well until an unexpected reaction from the second patient to the administration of the drug and a raid by the authorities threaten to derail the situation.

KomaK

2002

About Special Effects poster
5.0

This film deals with the theme of the heritage left to the underground cinema by the historical avant-garde.

About Special Effects

2001

Autoritratto Auschwitz. L'occhio è per così dire l'evoluzione biologica di una lagrima poster
NR

In the film we find some scrap of slow motion they see a Monica Vitti trying to cry, a meeting between Antonioni and Grifi, a film shot in the concentration camp of Auschwitz with a survivor who recounts those awful moments, a glimpse of Palestine today, Grifi's reflections on the prison.

Autoritratto Auschwitz. L'occhio è per così dire l'evoluzione biologica di una lagrima

2007

No artwork available
2.0

The documentary focuses on the impressive event of the Italian youth world organized at Parco Lambro in Milan in 1976. The gathering, four days dedicated to counterculture and pop music, was attended by students, young people, workers, lumpenproletarians, feminists, gays and young people from extra-parliamentary groups. The memories and testimonies of those who organized, sang or simply participated will be a commentary on the splendid images of the time. For the first time, meaning is given to the exclusive and complete material shot by Alberto Grifi and six other operators at Parco Lambro in 1976.

Nudi Verso la Follia

2004

In viaggio verso Alberto Grifi poster
NR

7 April 2006 Alberto Grifi, a year before his death, is interviewed for the last time by Roberto Silvestri and canecapovolto. What emerges in the interview is the portrait of an underground filmmaker who was always intrigued by the dual aim of pursuing scientific and artistic research simultaneously, and whose cinema, influenced by Grotowski's method, was made by people whose objective was to understand how life works by interpreting roles that allow them to live experiences which were totally different from their own ones.

In viaggio verso Alberto Grifi

2006

No artwork available
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Giravolte

2001

La spiaggia. Ritratto di Giordano Falzoni poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

La spiaggia. Ritratto di Giordano Falzoni

2004

Grifi racconta Grifi poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Grifi racconta Grifi

2004

Series credits

Behind the camera

Fuori campo di Anna – Presentazione a Venezia, settembre 1975 poster
7.0

After its premiere at the Berlinale Forum in February '75, Anna was also presented in Venice, the film was followed by a very well-participated debate, alongside Alberto Grifi there was Adriano Aprà, and among those present was Tatti Sanguineti, the author of a very articulate critical speech. The footage of this meeting is part of the 30 cassettes containing the video footage from which the film was edited, thanks to the work of Anna Maria Licciardello, the Cineteca Nazionale with the Fondazione Grifi and the La camera ottica laboratory in Gorizia.

Fuori campo di Anna – Presentazione a Venezia, settembre 1975

2025

Fuori campo di Anna – Presentazione a Venezia, settembre 1975 poster
7.0

After its premiere at the Berlinale Forum in February '75, Anna was also presented in Venice, the film was followed by a very well-participated debate, alongside Alberto Grifi there was Adriano Aprà, and among those present was Tatti Sanguineti, the author of a very articulate critical speech. The footage of this meeting is part of the 30 cassettes containing the video footage from which the film was edited, thanks to the work of Anna Maria Licciardello, the Cineteca Nazionale with the Fondazione Grifi and the La camera ottica laboratory in Gorizia.

Fuori campo di Anna – Presentazione a Venezia, settembre 1975

2025

Anna poster
6.7

A documentary ostensibly about Anna, a young drug addict taken off the streets by one of the filmmakers. Through her they attempt to explore the social issues from their hippie perspective, instead they create a revealing, uncomfortable self-portrait and inadvertently raise questions about documentary film-making.

Anna

1975

Anna poster
6.7

A documentary ostensibly about Anna, a young drug addict taken off the streets by one of the filmmakers. Through her they attempt to explore the social issues from their hippie perspective, instead they create a revealing, uncomfortable self-portrait and inadvertently raise questions about documentary film-making.

Anna

1975

No artwork available
NR

"A partire dal Dolce brings together "portraits-interventions" of a dozen or so thinkers, artists, friends of Gianfranco Baruchello (including extremely rare footage of Jean-François Lyotard), who comment on the concept of the "dolce" (gentle/soft/sweet)" Claudine Eizykman, Les Rendez-vous du Cinéma Expérimental, February 2000

A partire dal dolce

1979

Transfert per Camera verso Virulentia poster
6.0

On a theatrical work by Aldo Braibanti, the special effects used in an attempt to construct a new visual grammar capable of describing "the new geography of boundless perceptions and imaginaries, the emergence of memories from the very distant phylogenetic past of our animal ancestors, a gift of psychotropic substances."

Transfert per Camera verso Virulentia

1967

Long Live The Orgonauts! poster
2.0

In the distant future, a spaceship inhabited by a group of young descendants of a "subversive" minority who escaped the destruction of the Earth, recovers a capsule in which the hibernating body of a reactionary warmonger has been preserved, who after having caused war and death, it has abandoned the now unlivable Earth. The visual experimentation aimed at the liberation of the gaze is intertwined with psychedelic visions on the one hand and with the orgone theory of Reichian memory on the other.

Long Live The Orgonauts!

1970

Long Live The Orgonauts! poster
2.0

In the distant future, a spaceship inhabited by a group of young descendants of a "subversive" minority who escaped the destruction of the Earth, recovers a capsule in which the hibernating body of a reactionary warmonger has been preserved, who after having caused war and death, it has abandoned the now unlivable Earth. The visual experimentation aimed at the liberation of the gaze is intertwined with psychedelic visions on the one hand and with the orgone theory of Reichian memory on the other.

Long Live The Orgonauts!

1970

About Special Effects poster
5.0

This film deals with the theme of the heritage left to the underground cinema by the historical avant-garde.

About Special Effects

2001

About Special Effects poster
5.0

This film deals with the theme of the heritage left to the underground cinema by the historical avant-garde.

About Special Effects

2001

About Special Effects poster
5.0

This film deals with the theme of the heritage left to the underground cinema by the historical avant-garde.

About Special Effects

2001

Autoritratto Auschwitz. L'occhio è per così dire l'evoluzione biologica di una lagrima poster
NR

In the film we find some scrap of slow motion they see a Monica Vitti trying to cry, a meeting between Antonioni and Grifi, a film shot in the concentration camp of Auschwitz with a survivor who recounts those awful moments, a glimpse of Palestine today, Grifi's reflections on the prison.

Autoritratto Auschwitz. L'occhio è per così dire l'evoluzione biologica di una lagrima

2007

Autoritratto Auschwitz. L'occhio è per così dire l'evoluzione biologica di una lagrima poster
NR

In the film we find some scrap of slow motion they see a Monica Vitti trying to cry, a meeting between Antonioni and Grifi, a film shot in the concentration camp of Auschwitz with a survivor who recounts those awful moments, a glimpse of Palestine today, Grifi's reflections on the prison.

Autoritratto Auschwitz. L'occhio è per così dire l'evoluzione biologica di una lagrima

2007

Autoritratto Auschwitz. L'occhio è per così dire l'evoluzione biologica di una lagrima poster
NR

In the film we find some scrap of slow motion they see a Monica Vitti trying to cry, a meeting between Antonioni and Grifi, a film shot in the concentration camp of Auschwitz with a survivor who recounts those awful moments, a glimpse of Palestine today, Grifi's reflections on the prison.

Autoritratto Auschwitz. L'occhio è per così dire l'evoluzione biologica di una lagrima

2007

Uncertain Verification poster
6.6

A short film containing a collection of clips from various Hollywood movies.

Uncertain Verification

1965

Frammenti di una vita d'eroina poster
5.0

A day in the life of poet Patrizia Vicinelli who tries for the umpteenth time to free herself from drug addiction.

Frammenti di una vita d'eroina

1977

Il grande freddo poster
4.0

A film about painting and its denial concerning Giordano struggling with the Sleeping Beauty, this is the challenge. Will art, free of museums and academies be able to give back to the child raped and abandoned on the snow, the desire to go on living? Giordano, Prince Charming bearing butterfly catchers and rotating optical games, plods along sinking into the snow and… but revolutionary creativity is not the one that makes the bird in the cage sink: is it the reason why the imprisoned bird breaks the cage.

Il grande freddo

1971

Il Festival del Proletariato Giovanile al Parco Lambro poster
1.0

Between June 26 and 29, 1976, the sixth edition of the Festival of the Juvenile Proletariat took place at Parco Lambro in Milan, an event conceived by the countercultural magazine Re Nudo. The organizers invited Alberto Grifi to film those days filled with meetings, debates, and concerts, but not everything went as planned. This is the 58-minute version (from 27 hours of footage) edited by Grifi himself after the event.

Il Festival del Proletariato Giovanile al Parco Lambro

1976

In Viaggio con Patrizia poster
NR

A trip in an automobile described in the style of the phonetic poetry by Patrizia Vicinelli.

In Viaggio con Patrizia

2007

In Viaggio con Patrizia poster
NR

A trip in an automobile described in the style of the phonetic poetry by Patrizia Vicinelli.

In Viaggio con Patrizia

2007

In Viaggio con Patrizia poster
NR

A trip in an automobile described in the style of the phonetic poetry by Patrizia Vicinelli.

In Viaggio con Patrizia

2007

No artwork available
NR

They were projected during the theatrical event.

Pezzi dell'Amleto

1966

Vigilando reprimere poster
4.9

A prison escape gone wrong. A man and a woman meet in an apocalyptic scenario, in the midst of an obscurantist wave of repression of consciences.

Vigilando reprimere

1972

Vigilando reprimere poster
4.9

A prison escape gone wrong. A man and a woman meet in an apocalyptic scenario, in the midst of an obscurantist wave of repression of consciences.

Vigilando reprimere

1972

No artwork available
NR

Documentary film on Gianfranco Baruchello, Alberto Grifi and Agnese Naldoni's visit to Man Ray's studio.

Filming Man Ray

1990

La spiaggia. Ritratto di Giordano Falzoni poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

La spiaggia. Ritratto di Giordano Falzoni

2004

La prima volta che Zavattini provò ad usare un videotape poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

La prima volta che Zavattini provò ad usare un videotape

1993

Grifi spiegato ai bambini - Il mattatoio su internet poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Grifi spiegato ai bambini - Il mattatoio su internet

1994

No stop grammatica poster
NR

A happening that lasted 12 hours in the Feltrinelli bookshop in Rome. The soundtrack (background weaning) was put together by the crowd, recomposing, without listening to them, pieces of magnetic film that had been distributed around. There are almost all the painters, directors and actors of the Roman avant-garde.

No stop grammatica

1966

Viaggio a Cagliari poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Viaggio a Cagliari

2004

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Filming Marcel Duchamp

—

Lia poster
NR

The intervention of a student at the "counter convention" at the Fabbrica della Comunicazione di Brera, against the convention on anti-psychiatry by A. Vermiglione.

Lia

1977

Lia poster
NR

The intervention of a student at the "counter convention" at the Fabbrica della Comunicazione di Brera, against the convention on anti-psychiatry by A. Vermiglione.

Lia

1977

Dinni e la Normalina, ovvero la Videopolizia Psichiatrica contro i sedicenti Gruppi di Follia Militante poster
NR

This is a quite a rare example of a political sci-fi filmed without means. An excessive and schizophrenic creature, DINNI E LA NORMALINA allows Grifi’s more playful soul to see the light, while not dispersing the dark reflection on the exploitation by media institutions.

Dinni e la Normalina, ovvero la Videopolizia Psichiatrica contro i sedicenti Gruppi di Follia Militante

1978

Leoncavallo - I Giorni dello Sgombero poster
NR

Following the radios of the movement, this film appeared as a protest - one of the first demonstrations of an antagonistic self-managed communication over the entire territory of the nation that resulted in a debate and a collective work in many Italian cities dealing with counter-information and liberation of informatic technologies.

Leoncavallo - I Giorni dello Sgombero

1994

No artwork available
NR

Only the working copy exists. The negative was destroyed by the production. With Beppe Lenti. The title says it all: the production, tired of the fact that during the making of the film we were changing the script at night, denied us the generator to shoot some reverse shots. So there are actors who at night, in a concrete statue factory, talk to other actors, in a car cemetery, in the sun.

Nonotte

1961

Grifi racconta Grifi poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Grifi racconta Grifi

2004

Michele alla ricerca della felicità poster
3.5

Michele, a political prisoner, witnesses the violence and fury of guards against a drug addicted prisoner.

Michele alla ricerca della felicità

1978

Michele alla ricerca della felicità poster
3.5

Michele, a political prisoner, witnesses the violence and fury of guards against a drug addicted prisoner.

Michele alla ricerca della felicità

1978

Non soffiare nel narghilè poster
NR

The laugh-out-loud adventures of a drug dealer and his customers struggling with a joint, filmed in the hippy commune of Terrasini, near Palermo.

Non soffiare nel narghilè

1970