D’AMORE SE VIVE (WE LIVE OF LOVE)
dir. Silvano Agosti, 1984
93 mins. Italy.
In Italian with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4 - 10PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 13 - 5PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19 - 5PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24 - 10PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26 - 3PM W DIRECTOR Q&A! *this event is $10

First broadcast on Italian television and never officially released in the United States, D’AMORE SI VIVE is an object lesson in the art of the conversational (not to be confused with “talking head”) documentary.
Consistently audible behind the camera but never appearing onscreen, director Silvano Agosti conducts wide-ranging interviews about love and its manifestations with: a priest’s daughter who was unable to orgasm until long after she got married, a precocious (and frequently hilarious) eight-year-old boy, a middle-aged ex-sex worker, and two trans women with radically different life stories. Out of hundreds of candidates, these five were chosen for their unique observations on love and sex, as well as their willingness to open up to Agosti, resulting in harrowing, unpredictable and moving results. Agosti is a fearless interloper, and his talent for probing into desire, trauma, denial, repression, family and fantasy - as well as to receive criticism in return - makes for an intense viewing experience, guaranteed to get under your skin in a matter of minutes (if not seconds.)

“I screened D’AMORE SI VIVE at Teatro Regio in Parma, which is the shrine of official culture. And when I left the theater I was met by the DIGOS \[the General Investigations and Special Operations Division of the Italian police\]. A gentleman from the police force told me, ‘Mr. Agosti, your film is under arrest.’ I offered him a DVD of the film and I told him, ‘Well, if it has to be kidnapped, kidnap it.’ ‘We are not allowed. You must hand it over to us.’ Curiously and fortunately, the judge had seen the film twice in theaters and considered it to be an important film. I always operate from within a kind of catalyst that some people, in bad faith, refer to as ‘provocation,’ but that I prefer to define as ‘stimulation.’

As Vladimir Mayakovsky said: 'Cinema is an athlete. Cinema is the bearer of ideas. Cinema modernizes literature but cinema is sick. The industry threw a handful of gold coins in its eyes, skilled entrepreneurs with tearful or violent stories deceive people.'" -Silvano Agosti, in conversation with Adelita Husni Bey

Please be advised: this film contains a disturbing reference to suicide, as well as a historically controversial scene where a minor is asked about masturbation. Viewer discretion is advised.