OTTO ORE NON SONO UN GIORNO/EIGHT HOURS DON?T MAKE A DAY (Western Germany, 1972-1973, 476′)

First episode: Jochen und Marion (101′) – Thursday, October 3, at 5 pm, Cinema Massimo, Screen 3
Second episode: Oma und Gregor (100′) – Sunday, October 6, at 5 pm, Cinema Massimo, Screen 3
The last 3 episodes will be screened at Cinema Massimo on Monday, October 7 at 9 pm and Tuesday, October 8 at 4 pm and 6 pm

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Original title: Acht Stunden sind kein Tag
Direction, script and screenplay: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Photography: Dietrich Lohmann
Editing: Marie Anne Gerhardt
Music: Jean Gepoint (Jens Wilhelm Petersen)
Cast: Gottfried John, Hanna Schygulla, Luise Ulrich, Werner Finck, Anita Bucher, Kurt Raab, Irm Hermann, Margit Carstensen, Ulli Lommel, Eva Mattes
Production: Wdr (Colonia)

Otto ore non sono un giorno (Eight hours don’t make a day)  is a movie for German television, consisting of five episodes (eight were originally planned, but the TV station that commissioned Fassbinder to make the film interrupted production, leaving the work unfinished), each of which lasts as a full-length film: Jochen and Marion, Oma and Gregor, Franz and Ernst, Harald and Monika, Irmgard and Rolf.  This work revolves around the vicissitudes of the Kruger family. They run parallel with the work travails of its individual members, particularly those of Jochen, a mechanical worker in a factory. The love stories of various characters develop, grow and die during the episodes, intertwining with the relationships established between the workers and their bosses in the factories. It was the first serial film whose protagonists were workers. But it was also the first about the world of the factory, programme-wise completely different from all the political documentaries while being at the same time the outcome of years of research in factories and discussions with labourers. Back then, the movie was harshly criticised by both the right and the left, but it featured many actors, actresses and Fassbinder?s regular collaborators.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Bad Wörishofen, Germany, 1945 – Munich, Germany, 1982), is a German director, screenwriter, and actor. He wrote in just 17 years, from 1965 to 1982, one of the most extraordinary pages of German, European and global cinema of the second half of the 20th century in terms of intensity and originality. After dropping out of school before his diploma, he spent time at his father’s in Cologne  (his parents were divorced) and then returned to Munich to take acting lessons. In 1965- ’66 he made his first short films and saw his application to the Film and Television Academy in Berlin rejected. In 1967 he joined the action-theatre where the following year he staged his first play, Katzelmacher , which became his second feature film in 1969. After the theatre was closed by the police in May 1968, Fassbinder founded the “anti-theatre” together with people from the old group, which lasted until the end of 1969. A crucial year, the latter, because it marked Fassbinder’s feature film debut, L’amore è più freddo della morte (Love is Colder than Death). In 1970, he married actress Ingrid Caven, from whom he divorced two years later. He also continued his theatrical and radio directing activities, but it was the cinema that absorbed him with an incessant production of films that often earned him ostracism and censorship. His first public success came in 1974 with Effi Bries t. In 1976 he was accused of anti-Semitism for the play I rifiuti, la città e la morte ( Waste, city and death ). In 1977 with Despair, he signed his first film with an international cast. Between one masterpiece and another for the cinema is the immense, in terms of length and visionary nature, television script Berlin Alexanderplatz . In 1982, he took leave of cinema and life at the age of 37. It was the year of Veronika Voss , which won the Berlin Film Festival, and of Querelle , based on Jean Genet.

Filmography (selected): Love is colder than death (1969), Katzelmacher (1969), Gods of the Plague (1969), Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1969), Rio das Mortes (1970, film for television), Whity (1970), The American Soldier (1970), Beware of a Holy Whore (1970), The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971), The bitter tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Selvaggina di passo (1972), Eight hours don?t make a day (1972-1973, film for television) Ali: Fear eats the soul (1973), Martha (1973, film for television), Effi Briest (1972-1974), Il diritto del più forte (1974), Satan’s brew (1975-1976), Chinese Roulette (1976), Despair (1977), The marriage of di Maria Braun (1978), In a year of Thirteen moons (1978), The third generation (1978-1979), Berlin Alexanderplatz (1979-1980, film for television), Lili Marleen (1980), Lola (1981), Veronika Voss (1982), Querelle (1982).