WORKING SLOWLY / RADIO ALICE
Dir: Guido Chiesa
2004 111mins
Revisiting the Italy of the radical Seventies and its
obsessions with class struggle, creative anarchy and
macrame ponchos, Working Slowly (Radio Alice) provides
a fascinating glimpse of a time of protest.

In a working-class district on the outskirts of
Bologna, Sgualo (Tommaso Ramenghi) and Pelo (Marco
Luisi) hang out at the local cafe, allergic to
gainful employment. They don't mind the occasional
shady job for local hood Marangon (Valerio Binasco),
but they're convinced there's little future
whichever way they turn.

***

This is the official website of the film. It's in
Italian but there's a lot
of clips and audio files to check out, as well as the
trailer.
 http://www.lavorareconlentezza.com

***

This is what we wrote about the film on Giap/digest#26
a few months ago:

Actually the international title is "Radio Alice", but
the movie is originally called "Lavorare con lentezza"
[Work Slowly], after a 1970's song by Italian
folk-singer Enzo Del Re: "Work slowly / And
effortlessly / Work may hurt you / And send you to the
hospital / Where there's no bed left / And you may
even die. / Work slowly / And effortlessly / Health is

priceless."

Guido had directed a very good documentary on Radio
Alice in 2002, the year that marked the 25th
anniversary of the March 1977 riots in Bologna,
Rome, and other Italian cities. At the peak of the
riots, the Bologna-based independent far-leftist
"mao-dadaist" radio station called Radio Alice was
shut down by the police.

Here you can find a blurb of the documentary and a
biographical note on Guido.
 http://www.fandango.it/eng/documentari/alice/alice.htm
In 2001 Guido contacted us via e-mail, said that after
the documentary he
was willing to make a feature film on the same
subject, and asked if we
were interested in co-authoring the screenplay. We
were.
We were already acquainted with the story and the
memories of that
movement, but went back to studying all the same. The
screenplay was
written in 2002 and 2003, and the movie was shot in
October and November
2003. It was produced by Fandango [www.fandango.it],
the most dynamic
production firm in Italy.
"Lavorare con lentezza" was among the competing films
at the 61st Venice
International Film Festival. 21-year-old Tommaso
Ramenghi and Marco Luisi,
both at their debut, jointly won the Marcello
Mastroianni Award for best
upcoming actors. The premiere of the film at Italian
cinemas is scheduled
for October 1st.
As yet, the movie's official website
[www.lavorareconlentezza.com] is only
in Italian, but you don't need to know the language to
grasp some meaning:
you may watch the trailer or take a look at the
poster:
 http://www.lavorareconlentezza.com/imgContent/manifesto-70x100.jpg
Here's the English translation of a long rant by
Collective A/traverso,
which loosely "ran" the actual radio station in those
days:
 http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=03/03/05/2243231&mode=nested&tid=15

***

WHAT WAS RADIO ALICE?
11 March 1977, Bologna. During the violent clashes
between police and
youths that end up with the intervention of armoured
vehicles, a
Carabiniere kills the student Francesco Lo Russo. 12
March 1977. The brief
history of Radio Alice, accused of having directed the
battle by radio,
ends with the Carabinieri breaking in. It is the first
time in the history
of the Italian republic that a radio station was
closed down by military
hands.
Radio Alice was one of the most singular and original
experiments on
language and communication that ever took hold in
Italy. Lacking a proper
newsroom and even less a programme schedule, the
Bologna broadcaster made
spontaneity and linguistic contamination something
more than just a flag to
wave. It was a project where political, artistic and
existential petitions
blended in the common denominator of radio space.
Today, after more than a
quarter of a century, maybe we can start to talk about
Alice again, to try
to understand if there was something in that voice
that could be used again
today.

WHO IS GUIDO CHIESA?
Guido is a film director and a rock critic. He was
born in Turin in 1959.
In the early Eighties, after taking a degree in the
History of Cinema, he
moved to the United States, where he worked as an
assistant director with
Jim Jarmusch, Amos Poe, and Michael Cimino. After
returning to Italy, Guido
directed several shorts, documentaries, videoclips and
feature films.
During the 1990's, the main subject of his works was
the heritage and
memory of antifascist Resistance. Sonic Youth named a
song after him
("Guido", from the "Dirty" album, Deluxe edition, cd
2, track #10).

***

The film was very successful in Italy and we hope
you'll like it too.