NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art, in association with Cinecittà Holding, presents the New York premiere of Ferzan Ozpetek’s most recent film, Un giorno perfetto (A Perfect Day) (2008), as one of the features of Filmmaker in Focus: Ferzan Ozpetek, a seven-film exhibition of one of the most successful contemporary Italian filmmakers. The premiere of A Perfect Day on Friday, December 5, at 6:00 p.m., will be introduced by actress Isabella Ferrari, and followed by a Q&A with Ozpetek (b. 1959, Istanbul) and Laura Delli Colli, film critic and author of a monograph that will be released in conjunction with the exhibition, titled Ferzan Ozpetek: Eyes Wide Open, edited by Mondadori.
Filmmaker in Focus: Ferzan Ozpetek screens in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters at MoMA from December 4 through 14, 2008, and is organized by Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film, and Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero, Cinecittà Holding, Rome. All of the films are directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Two of Italy’s most acclaimed actresses, Ferarri, and Margherita Buy, who are part of an ensemble of actors that is often used to create the fabled multicultural and sexually fluid milieus in Ozpetek’s universe, will attend the exhibition.
Ozpetek creates films that display a unique thematic focus while remaining ambitious in scope and richly rewarding in their technical achievement. Effortlessly elegant, his aesthetic rarely calls attention to itself; his films masterfully illuminate various strains of society and strands of storytelling, and his actors shine in beautifully written, multifaceted parts that embrace an unforced multiculturalism. Ozpetek’s films are often rooted in the tradition of the sophisticated melodramas of the 1950s, pivoting around seemingly ordinary and content people whose lives become unmoored, often by a sudden death, leading to the discovery of previously unacknowledged passions and possibilities.
The filmmaker’s signature tracking camera unites disparate time periods (as in Facing Windows and Harem) and distant locales (Italy and Turkey), and creates a visual connection between Ozpetek’s central characters and the extended families they discover, whether in close friendships (Saturn in Opposition), in communal living (His Secret Life), or in caring for those in need (Sacred Heart, Facing Windows).
This exhibition is part of the Filmmaker in Focus series at MoMA, which highlights the achievements of a mid-career director with an aesthetically and critically established career in filmmaking. This is the second exhibition in the series, which began in September 2008 with Filmmaker in Focus: Carlos Reygadas.
