Set of the first "colossal" film
In 1914, director Giovanni Pastrone signed the first "colossal" (the term used in Italy to designate a big-budget film with numerous special effects, the equivalent of a blockbuster) and shot the peplum Cabiria partly in the old Porta Susa railway station and in the Dora Riparia factories. The script was co-written by the writer Gabriele D'Annunzio, while its length is 3,364 meters for around three hours and ten minutes of entertainment - the longest for the time! - and its production cost was almost twenty times the average cost of a film at the time. Fortunately for investors, it was a worldwide success: it ran for no less than six months in New York, and was probably the first film to be shown at the White House.
The Mole Antonelliana and its Museum of Cinema
Turin is, of course, famous for its incredible film museum. More than just an institute housing a collection of over 2 million items, the museum has been designed to evoke a truly spectacular journey. Swiss scenographer François Confino made the most of the Mole Antonelliana's scenery. The 167-metre-high dome is crossed by an elevator that serves the various galleries, each of which has its own custom-designed décor. This is the largest museum dedicated to the seventh art in Europe.
Naturally, it has a relic of the film Cabiria: the statue of the god Moloch is on display, alongside numerous relics of the seventh art: cameras, posters, costumes, sets and more.
Some mythical films and settings
To enjoy Turin on the big screen, here are a few films shot in the Piedmontese capital.
Valentino Castle, one of the residences of the Savoy royal family, hosted the filming of King Vidor's War and Peace (1956), adapted from Leo Tolstoy's novel, starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda.
La Donna della domenica by Luigi Comencini, released in 1975, features Marcello Mastroianni, Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Louis Trintignant strolling through the Piazza della Repubblica and the Porta Palazzo market.
Released the same year, Dario Argento's Profondo Rosso was also shot in Turin. In fact, the apartment where the murder takes place in the opening scene overlooks Piazza CLN . It is said that he chose this city as the setting for Profondo Rosso because of the surprisingly dense presence of practicing Satanists. The great master of Italian genre cinema, known as "Giallo", is particularly fond of the city's supernatural and occult atmosphere, having shot no less than seven films here!
More recently, Paolo Sorrentino chose the mansions of the city center as the backdrop for his film Il Divo, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2008 and follows the career of one of Italy's most famous statesmen, Giulio Andreotti.
Production
The city has a number of assets that favor film production and offer professionals many advantages. In particular, the Film Commission Torino Piemonte is a foundation whose main aim is to help film and audiovisual production companies realize their projects, whether national or international, in all genres.
On a more artisanal note, Superottomonamour is a film laboratory based in the suburbs of Turin. Based on the model of the independent MTK laboratory founded in Grenoble, its Turin counterpart, created in 1998 by a group of local filmmakers including Stefano Canapa, offers filmmakers who so wish a free, autonomous production space.
