Ugo Saitta

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Giuseppe Ugo Saitta (born June 14, 1912 in Catania , † February 5, 1983 in Rome ) was an Italian documentary filmmaker and film director .

Life

Saitta already took an active part in the cultural life of his hometown during his school days and subsequent studies; so around 1932 a production of Dario Niccodemis Scampolo was created , in which he played himself and which was shown at the "Teatro Coppola". The first short documentary films were made with the “Cine Gruppo Dilettantistico Juventus Film”, which he co-founded. This led to the first commissioned work, for example for Fiat . In 1935 he made his first feature film, Clima puro , which depicts a student's struggle with fascist re-education and the ideals behind it after a stay abroad .

In 1935 Saitta moved to Rome, where he attended the Scuola Nazionale di Cinematografia , where he a. a. was taught by Alessandro Blasetti . During this time he worked on numerous projects as a director of commissioned works or as a cameraman . In 1939 he presented the innovative short puppet cartoon Pisicchio e Melisenda at the Venice Film Festival (for which he used only 16,902 of the 90,224 pictures taken).

In the years to come, works on airplanes (1942, Prime ali ), time measurement (1942, La scatola del tempo ), military riding (1943, Cavalieri della GIL ) and La canapa (1943), used at festivals, followed . After the end of the Second World War , Saitta returned to Catania , where he and his friend Ettore Catalucci , the founder of the film technology company “Sviluppo Pellicole e Stampa”, founded the production company “X Film”. After the first project, Nuvola ; 1945 failed for financial reasons, two years later L'Etna è bianco presented the premiere work. The following years produced important works by Saitta: Boy Scouts a Taormina , the Zolfara filmed by the Sicilian miners (which was also shown in Venice in 1948 ), Agata, raggio di luce on the patroness of Catania , and Angolo in Paradiso .

During these years Saitta's work for Inducstria Cortometraggi Milano (INCOM) began, with the help of which he brought short, industrial and tourist advertising films from his home island of Sicily to the Italian mainland. Famous pictures were created in connection with the shooting of Salvatore Giuliano in 1950. In the following year, Saitta created Volto di Sicilia No. 0 his prototype of the cinema journal. A 1953 documentary was dedicated to the veristic writer Giovanni Verga . In the middle of the decade he tirelessly made other works that highlighted the cultural, geographic and ethnological aspects of his homeland. In 1959 and 1960 he worked for television and directed Giovanni Girgenti's Testi di lignu at the “Ente Teatro di Sicilia” .

He achieved great success in 1960 with the beautifully illustrated documentary Traveling in Sicily , which won an award at the Taormina Film Festival , and was recorded as a promotional film for Sicily. In 1962, Saitta revived his movie journal Volto di Sicilia , his interpretation of the newsreel . In addition to several other tourism films, Siace '67 about the paper industry in Fiumefreddo and his fourth film about Etna , Etna quota 3000 , from 1969 are noteworthy .

Saitta's only feature film Lo voglio maschio shows the efforts of the main actor Tuccio Musumecci , with all legal, scientific, magical means, to father a son. In 1976 the director returned to documentary film when he took a look at contemporary Sicilian painters and their styles with Storia su due ruote . An illustration of Sicilian religious beliefs ( La festa dei poveri ) was followed by the unfinished È Sicilia , also in the existing form a picture arc of his homeland appropriate to the overall work of its creator.

The actress Gabriella Saitta is his daughter.

Filmography (selection)

documentary
  • 1935: Clima puro
  • 1942: Prime ali
  • 1943: Cavalieri della GIL
  • 1947: L'Etna è bianco
  • 1948: Zolfara
  • 1949: Agata, raggio di luce
  • 1953: La terra di Giovanni Verga
  • 1960: Traveling in Sicily
  • 1967: Siace '67
  • 1969: Etna quota 3000
  • 1976: Storia su due ruote
  • 1979: La festa dei poveri
  • 1981: È Sicilia
motion pictures
  • 1939: Pisicchio e Melisenda (puppet cartoon )
  • 1971: Lo voglio maschio

literature

  • Alessandro De Filippo: Ugo Saitta, cineoperatore . 2012, 112 pages.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roberto Poppi: Dizionario del cinema italiano. I registers. Gremese Editore, Rome 2002, p. 378
  2. ↑ appreciation Saittas at Cinema Italiano.info
personal data
SURNAME Saitta, Ugo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Saitta, Giuseppe Ugo (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian documentary filmmaker and film director
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Catania
DATE OF DEATH 5th February 1983
Place of death Rome