UCL FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

Including rare screenings of her two London films 'K' (1954) and 'Together' (1956)

As a student at the Slade School of Fine Art, Lorenza Mazzetti made her first film 'K' based on Kafka’s 'Metamorphosis', featuring fellow student Michael Andrews as Gregor Samsa.

With support from the Slade Professor William Coldstream and the director of the BFI, Denis Forman, Mazzetti was financed by the BFI Experimental Film Fund to make 'Together', with Eduardo Paolozzi and Michael Andrews as deaf-mute dockworkers in London’s bomb-damaged East End.

'Together' was shown at the first Free Cinema event at the NFT in 1956. With its credo of subjectivity, poetic freedom and the elevation of the everyday, Free Cinema brought Mazzetti into contact with figures such as Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, Walter Lassally and John Fletcher.

In its pronounced rejection of theatrical cinematic conventions, Free Cinema’s relationship with Italian neorealism, radical British documentary and ‘Kitchen Sink’ drama, situates it at a contested but fascinating point within post–war British culture.

As an Italian woman in a predominantly male domain, working at the cusp of the profound social and cultural shifts later associated with the 1960’s, Mazzetti offers unique insights into the creative and intellectual ambitions of the Free Cinema Movement in Britain.

Mazzetti returned to Italy in 1956 where she made documentary films and wrote two novels. Her 1961 novel Il Cielo Cade ('The Sky Falls') based on her traumatic childhood wartime experiences, was made into the 2000 film directed by Andrea and Antonio Frazzi, starring Isabella Rossellini.

She worked collaboratively for many years in puppet theatre and continues to paint prolifically. 'London Diaries', Mazzetti’s account of her time in England will be published by Sellario in Italy later this year. She lives and works in Rome.

Places free but limited.

For further information and to reserve a place RSVP to: b.lowe@ucl.ac.uk