"DON CHISCIOTTE E IL CINEMA DELL'INVISIBILE" book

[Boukman]

Hello everyone!

how much time has passed! I have not been on this forum since I was a kid convinced that I could save the world! My name is Sigismondo Sciortino, I remember some of you (especially Tony, whom I greet with pleasure). From 2006 to 2010 approximately I was very active on this forum. I had just graduated in History of Cinema with a thesis on Don Quixote, I had been lucky enough to meet Mauro Bonanni and know his story. Through this forum I was also contacted by the late Ciro Giorgini, with whom I struck up a good friendship and who was, while he was there, the one who kept me informed of the latest developments related to the Don Quixote lawsuit.
I was a very young boy who thought he could do something to save the kilometers of film preserved by Bonanni by putting energy into a mechanism in which the gears were getting old. Now everything is even more complicated, the few pieces of the puzzle are no longer there, but for me it was a beautiful adventure, where I met incredible people (like Professor Giorgio Agamben, who saw some scenes from Don Quixote calling them "the most beautiful images ever filmed in the history of cinema"). I was unable to do anything, Mauro (who I can assure you, was an exquisite man who had enormous affection and gratitude towards Orson) is no longer there, and everything remained behind me like a half-open door, from which I have the feeling that something will still come out, between now and when I stop breathing.
I am writing this post because in 2013 I wrote and published a book on Don Quixote. The little essay is practically unobtainable, so I decided to scan it and make it available for anyone interested. Unfortunately it is in Italian, but who knows, maybe some daredevil here will try to read it anyway. I am sure that you would love the interview with Bonanni. I send a hug to everyone of you. Sigi.

P.S. I just found my old nickname : it was "halfaorson"

https://www.transfernow.net/dl/20241006 ... 7/3A2dVlCx

[Le Chiffre]

Thank you, Boukman. I'd like to read the book sometime if a translation is ever done. We did translate some Italian magazine articles about THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND not long ago, but those articles were in a format that allowed for cut-and-paste.

We would love to hear any thoughts you have on the Bonanni vs. Oja case. At the Welles archive in Ann Arbor, there is a document presenting Oja's side of the story. It's been a long time since I've read it, but as I remember, she claimed that Bonanni didn't have that much to do with the editing of DON QUIXOTE. He was just another employee that Welles had hired. But when Welles came back to America, he entrusted Bonanni with the job of paying the storage bills for the Quixote negative, stored somewhere in Italy. Bonanni failed to make those payments, and pocketed the money that Welles had sent to him. Then, when the storage facility informed Bonanni that the footage was set to be destroyed because of unpaid bills, Bonanni gave the facility enough money to take possession of the footage and moved it to another storage facility.

I have no idea how true Oja's story is, and if someone more familiar with the Ann Arbor archive wants to correct me on any details, feel free. Apparently the court believed Oja since she won the case.