Giuseppe Taffarel

Directing

Giuseppe Taffarel

Born 1922-03-01 · Vittorio Veneto, Veneto, Italy

Giuseppe Taffarel was born in Vittorio Veneto (TV) on March 1, 1922, where he died on April 9, 2012, shortly after celebrating his ninetieth birthday. From an early age he showed an innate passion for theater. He was self-taught and read plays with predilection. At the age of 19 he arrived in Rome where he attended the Academy of Dramatic Arts directed by Silvio D'Amico. In 1943 he enlisted in the partisan resistance fought in the Belluno-Treviso Prealps. He distinguished himself for his courage in numerous war actions. In 1946 he returned to Rome, in the golden age of neorealism, frequenting the world of cinema that he found at the Menghi Brothers' trattoria and at the Rosati bar. In the capital, while participating in the writing of numerous screenplays, he began a career as a film actor that saw him act in about twenty films including Achtung! Banditi! by Carlo Lizzani (1951) with Gina Lollobrigida and Giuliano Montaldo. At the end of the 1940s he collaborated with Glauco Pellegrini and Rodolfo Sonego on the making of some documentaries (the most famous are Parliamo del naso, Lezioni di anatomia and L’esperienza del cubismo) and was assistant director on Ceramiche Umbre by Glauco Pellegrini (1949), the first experimental color documentary by Ferraniacolor produced by Lux Film. In 1960 – after having theorized on the birth of the “new documentary cinema” with Michelangelo Antonioni and his friend Vittorio De Seta – he directed his first film La croce shot in Vittorio Veneto and its surroundings. From then until the beginning of the 1980s, he made over three hundred documentaries on different themes and genres: from paleontology to contemporary history, from natural sciences to Italian customs up to the representation of cities and landscapes where the history of art and anthropology are always highlighted. In all of Taffarel’s works, the anthropological/ethnographic gaze flows into the aesthetics of the image, culminating in moments of absolute lyricism and rare audiovisual poetics. The Venetian author’s ability to observe life, grasping the threads that connect the small history of the common man to the great history of humanity, is recognizable in about twenty short films in neorealist style. These documentaries can be considered small pearls in the history of cinema, like the recently restored and digitalized Fazzoletti di terra (1962), L’alpino della Settima (1969) and Via Crucis (1972).

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Voci poster
NR

An elderly widower visits his wife at the cemetery. In his mind, a dialogue begins between the two, in which their son, who died prematurely, also becomes involved. The man realizes that he is living without a purpose and that perhaps death would be a liberation for him.

Voci

1969

Uccellanda poster
NR

It illustrates the operation of a large bird catcher (uccellanda) with a net and bait, characteristic of northern Italy and in particular the Veneto region. Preparations for bird-catching nets, training to call numerous birds, laboriously prepared tricks to deceive migratory birds and catch them in the net.

Uccellanda

1960

Surf Casting poster
NR

An overview of various sport fishing techniques, with a focus on surf casting or heavy casting from the shore, which originated in England and allows casts of up to 70 meters to be made in rough seas (which encourages large fish to approach the shore), using fresh razor clams as bait.

Surf Casting

1966

La croce poster
NR

First short film directed by Taffarel. A large wooden sled is carried by a farmer to the top of Mount Visentin to collect the hay left to dry along the slopes.

La croce

1960

Goliath and the Barbarians poster
4.7

When barbarians invade his village and kill his father, a local man wages a one-man war against them.

Goliath and the Barbarians

1959

Laguna poster
NR

All the small islands, even those measuring just a few square meters, that make up the Grado lagoon (province of Gorizia) are inhabited by fishermen. There is one hut per island, rarely two. Fishing is carried out using the ebb and flow of the tide, which exposes and floods vast areas of muddy shallows.

Laguna

1968

Le nerte poster
NR

The “nerte” are wandering women who travel down from the Upper Friuli region to the Veneto region to sell wooden objects for domestic use. They live humbly, sleeping in barns and eating whatever they can to save what little they earn. The documentary follows one of these women on her long journey.

Le nerte

1962

Via Crucis poster
NR

A child has no memory of his dead father, but every day he spends hours on his grave.

Via Crucis

1972

The Seven Revenges poster
6.8

The leaders of Circassians and Kyrgyz face off in a tournament divided into seven challenges: only one will gain the supremacy.

The Seven Revenges

1961

Monte Grappa 1944 poster
NR

The public display of hanged partisans, the bloody revenge of German soldiers, the bodies of those who had been shot, the deported families: traumas that remain in the memories of survivors and relatives of victims.

Monte Grappa 1944

1966

Solitudine poster
NR

Short film preparatory to an unrealized feature film. The life of a homeless man in Rome. The elderly man plays guitar on the street among passersby. Under a bridge over the Tiber, he makes himself a bed out of cardboard boxes; an old woman joins him, washing handkerchiefs in the river, and he approaches her.

Solitudine

1966

La resistenza nel Trevigiano poster
NR

Reconstruction of a dramatic episode in the partisan struggle that took place in Treviso in July 1944, where a raid by Nazi-Fascist militias led to the capture and hanging of more than seventy partisans.

La resistenza nel Trevigiano

1968

Vittorio Veneto: Città nella storia poster
NR

Origin and historical profile of present-day Vittorio Veneto (an Italian municipality in the province of Treviso, in the Veneto region), resulting from the merger of two different and rival municipalities: Ceneda and Serravalle.

Vittorio Veneto: Città nella storia

1968

Fazzoletti di terra poster
NR

A look into the harsh life of a hard-working couple of terrace farmers in the Valley of Brenta.

Fazzoletti di terra

1963

Impressioni libanesi poster
NR

From Beirut to the Lebanese mountain range overlooking the Mediterranean, there is a rich and lush land where nature presents itself in all its beauty.

Impressioni libanesi

1964

Un alpino della settima poster
NR

A man promised to his dying mother to find and give a proper resting place to the remains of the father, a soldier, dead during WW1 and never found. It's an impossible and desperate quest since he died during Mount Piana battle that lasted two years and resulted in the killing of 14000 soldiers. But the obstinate man never gave up searching on the Dolomiti Mountains for all his life.

Un alpino della settima

1969

Sesto Grado Superiore poster
10.0

Cesare Maestri demonstrates rock climbing technique by making an ascent in the Sella Group in the Dolomites. Maestri starts by climbing a fourth and fifth grade route. Then he progresses through a sixth grade rock face, and ends climbing a roof using aid climbing techniques. Maestri, nicknamed the 'Spider of the Dolomites' is known for his solo repeats in the Dolomites, as the first climber in the world to ascend the sixty-year walls, and for the controversial first ascent of Cerro Torre in Patagonia.

Sesto Grado Superiore

1960

Un giorno alla settimana poster
NR

Toni is an elderly man who lives in a nursing home in Vittorio Veneto (Treviso). Every night he has a nightmare: crows attack him and peck at his face, leaving him frozen in terror. For him, the nursing home is a waiting room for death, but he still wants to live. Around him are other elderly people in bed and in the dining room.

Un giorno alla settimana

1966

La montagna del sole poster
NR

The hard work of a family of farmers during hay-making season.

La montagna del sole

1966

Legna da ardere poster
NR

Two children are alone on the beach; the little girl plays while the older boy, Enzo, aged seven, collects firewood for the coming winter. Their parents are working, and the two children will have to grow up quickly.

Legna da ardere

1969

Uccellagione tradizione antica poster
NR

Ancient bird hunting techniques, still practiced in Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia, are illustrated.

Uccellagione tradizione antica

1967

Il contadino che viene dal mare poster
NR

The vineyards of Bagnara Calabra (in the province of Reggio Calabria) are located on rocky cliffs overlooking the sea. Small terraces were built by local fishermen over centuries of hard work, on days when fishing was not possible. The short film describes the life of a couple of farmers/fishermen divided between the vineyard and fishing at sea.

Il contadino che viene dal mare

1967

Caccia col capanno poster
NR

Various hunting systems with huts (in this case, “capanno” is an artificial shelter, the simplest of which actually resemble a tent). Decoy birds and assistants. What are decoys used for? How are they selected and trained?

Caccia col capanno

1967

Paese mio covo de' corcali poster
NR

The lagoon of Grado as seen and loved by the poet Biagio Marin. People, things, the sea, the seasons, seagulls: everything filtered through a poetic lens that transcends reality to recreate moods, visions, passions, and love for one's homeland.

Paese mio covo de' corcali

1967