The docu-film Magma. Mattarella, il delitto perfetto, directed by Giorgia Furlan and produced by Mauro Parissone for 42° Parallelo, with Antonio Campo Dall’Orto and Ferruccio de Bortoli as executive producers, will be presented today, 9 January 2025, at the Moderno cinema in Rome. The cinematography is by Tommaso Lusena CCS. A second screening is scheduled for 16 January in Bologna at the Modernissimo cinema, organised in collaboration with the Cineteca and dedicated to the families of the victims of the Bologna massacre of 2 August 1980.
Forty-five years after the assassination of Piersanti Mattarella, the two event evenings revisit one of the deepest wounds in Italian history, taking the audience into the heart of some of the darkest events of the Years of Lead: from the Mattarella murder, who was seen as the ideal successor to Aldo Moro, to the Bologna station massacre, which occurred in the same 1980, seven months after the assassination of the President of the Sicily Region.
Giorgia Furlan‘s film weaves together two narrative threads. The first stems from Irma Chiazzese‘s identification of Giusva Fioravanti, the neo-fascist terrorist, as the probable perpetrator of the murder, though he was never found guilty. The second thread is that of the mosaic, which holds more significance than a single tile: the film builds what Leonardo Sciascia called “the context” through archival footage and reenactments, blending fiction and documentary language.
Tommaso Lusena CCS shared with us:
The Magma project originated from an idea by director Giorgia Furlan, who aimed to reconstruct Piersanti Mattarella’s ‘perfect crime’ as a thriller, a noir film. From the start, the photographic approach focused on working with darkness and contrasts. Minimal lighting was used, both in interiors and in some outdoor scenes. The photographic approach centres on the search for drama, which also means subtracting light or not adding it in natural settings. In the interviews, however, there was a more specific effort to explore chiaroscuro, aiming to create sculptural lighting. The title Magma refers to the complex quest for truth, a truth that must be extracted from an indistinct substance like the lava flowing from a volcano. The director’s idea was to create a metaphor through journalist Attilio Bolzoni’s journey. As he reaches Stromboli and attempts to climb to the volcano’s summit, he seeks to uncover the truth. His ascent symbolizes the parallel progression of the narrative in reconstructing the truth.”
Some outdoor scenes recreated parts of the landscape closest to the crater. Since it was not possible to bring the actor too close to the actual crater for safety reasons, we decided to use other areas of the island to simulate the volcano with fairly simple methods, such as smoke, light contrasts and backlighting, and blurred shots, to convey the character’s ascent. The footage of the lava was captured using drones during actual eruptions.
We developed a strong creative understanding with director Giorgia Furlan; together, we created a dramatic visual style by integrating each other’s ideas. We crafted a “magma” of images: footage we shot ourselves, archival footage, and special effect shots, such as the recreation of the crater.
Since we were filming on the island of Stromboli, technical equipment was limited, and everything had to fit in the small pickup truck we had available. For this and other reasons, the technical choice fell on Sony equipment for its versatility and compactness, enhanced with vintage lenses, including Nikon Ai-s lenses adapted for cine use.
In addition to the collaboration with the director, the work with operators Mirko Fracassi and Fabio Falanga, the young and talented colourist Andrea Sabatelli, the screenwriter Alessia Arcolaci, and the rest of the crew was crucial. We developed an excellent working relationship.”
Tommaso Lusena during the filming in Sicily of “Magma. Mattarella, il delitto perfetto”
