A mosca cieca

Debut film by one of the most difficult Italian directors to place: Romano Scavolini, also known for Nightmare (1981), which was the inspiration for Wes Craven’s famous horror saga. A mosca cieca (literally ‘blind fly’, the Italian name for the game ‘blind man’s bluff’) follows the behaviour of a young man who finds a pistol and goes in search of a target (played by the actor Carlo Cecchi, who would become famous only later).

Apart from an off-screen Beckett quote the film is silent, but in 1966 in spite of support from a number of leading lights of the Italian cultural scene, there was no appetite for A mosca cieca: the film was too radical, too amoral, too free and improvised. Scavolini was banned by the Italian censors for ‘pornography’ (a glimpse of Laura Troschel’s breasts) and the official version was locked away in a safe for 50 years. Having been rediscovered and restored by the Italian national film archive
(CSC – Cineteca Nazionale), this unique film can now finally claim its rightful
place in film history.

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