In Prima Persona Plurale
A film by Carlo Lavagna
9′ 20”, 2023
Director and screenwriter Carlo Lavagna has realized an original story in the form of short film about the In First Person Plural exhibition, currently on view in the SOLO/MULTI section (27 April 2023 – 24 September 2023).
To translate the experience of the exhibition into video, Lavagna combined original and archive material from old VHS tapes, and transformed it using artificial intelligence.
The film is an impossible journey into the director’s memories, in search of an exhibition that really happened or perhaps was just a dream. Lavagna told: “I wanted to make a small film that would capture the concept of the uncanny, which is behind the exhibition In First Person Plural, to create a fantastic tale in which time and space overlapped, a bit like in a Borges story.”
CARLO LAVAGNA was born in Rome. He studied philosophy at University of Rome La Sapienza and the University of RUK (Copenhagen) and lived across Europe and in the United States before returning to Italy to film Arianna, his first feature film, winner of best Italian film and best actress revelation at the 2015 Venice Film Festival (Venice Days) and of the Italian Golden Globes for best actress. The film was also nominated in the category best upcoming director at the David di Donatello awards. As a director and producer, he made documentaries, art and short films presented at various festivals, including Venice, BFI London, Locarno, Gothenburg, Rotterdam, Lincoln Center, Guadalajara, Munich and many others. in 2018 he co-directed the 12 episodes tv show DPG La Serie for Netflix, on one of the major trap bands in Italy. His second feature film Shadows starring debut actress Mia Threapleton and Saskia Reeves was presented at the Festival of Rome and distributed by Vision Distribution. He’s currently working on his next film Dream Baby Dream, produced by Ring Film and Young Films. He’s also attached to direct the film Mammoth, that he co-wrote, produced by Groenlandia, and developed the TV show We Shall Not Fade for HBO Max. As a screenwriter he wrote the story and collaborated to the screenplay of The Tale of King Crab, presented at the Quinzaine des Realisateurs at the Cannes Film Festival 2021. He also contributes to the New York Times, Dazed Digital, Vogue, Purple Magazine and Nowness, directing videos for their platforms. He also directed and edited short documentaries for Vice Media, Discovery, MTV, PBS, Hantang, Rai and other international broadcasters. He directed the short film L’Unico for maison Valentino and other short films and commercials for Bulgari, Max Mara, Dolce & Gabbana, Diesel, Marriott, Pucci, Pedro, Gucci and others.