The documentary "Giovanni Boldini. Pleasure: The Story of an Artist" is the result of my collaboration as director with Vittorio Sgarbi, in occasion of the Boldini exhibition at the Mart Museum in Rovereto commemorating the 90th anniversary of the artist's death (Ferrara 1842-Paris 1931). At the turn of the twentieth century, Boldini was the most famous Italian artist in the world, a true representative of Paris’ golden age.
In a certain sense, Boldini, both for his art and his enormous international success, anticipated for the high society of his time the "trend setters" and "fashion bloggers" of contemporary social networks.
In this film, I also wanted to celebrate the beauty of the female world during this period in which women greeted the new century with great dreams of freedom and demands for civil progress. To this end, I combined several different perspectives, highlighting not only the greatness of the artist and his modernity (his work contains anticipations of both the Avant-garde and Futurist movements), but also the salient moments of his life. In particular, his ties with women, his "Divines," like the Marchesa Luisa Casati, but also his connections with the protagonists of the Parisian “bel monde”.
The story is enriched by the voices of the two talented actors, Alessia Patregnani and Francesco Mastrorilli, and by the special collaboration of Cecilia Matteucci Lavarini, a famous collector.
The film moves between the rooms of the Mart exhibition, narrated by the curators, footage of the time, unpublished images from private archives and, finally, other sets that bring to life the Belle Epoque atmosphere and elegant style of Giovanni Boldini.