Open Rehearsal | Francesca Fini

1:00 – 6:00pm | Screening of OFELIA NON ANNEGA (Ophelia did not drown)
6:00 – 8:00pm | Open Rehearsal with Francesca Fini

Film Screening | OFELIA NON ANNEGA (Ophelia did not drown)
OFELIA NON ANNEGA (Ophelia did not drown) is an experimental film which reinterprets with a surrealist twist the epic of the Shakespearean drama, but from the point of view of young Ophelia. The film was produced in collaboration with Istituto Luce – the national film archive devoted to the documentation of Italian society since 1927 – and integrates on a metalinguistic level heterogeneous and seemingly incompatible languages: the sociological national archive and original performance art designed and staged by Francesca Fini expressly for this project. At the center of it all is an Ophelia who is very different from that of the literary tradition: not the fragile teenager in love, but many women of different colors, features and age.

A modern sweet and sour Ophelia not lost in the romantic woods of Denmark, but in the harsh landscapes of Lazio: the industrial area of the Gazometro and the junkyard in Cisterna di Latina, the arid limestone caves of Riano Flaminio and the futuristic Villa Perugini in Fregene, passing through a crazy sightseeing tour on a tourist bus in Rome. An Ophelia who eventually did not drown, renouncing her destiny of romantic heroine to become a “person”.

Open Rehearsal | Francesca Fini
Following the screening of her film, Fini will present her work La Masca to the public in an open rehearsal. La Masca is a site-specific mixed media installation in which she exhibits original masks based on her previous performance experience at Watermill in 2014.

Francesca Fini is an Italian interdisciplinary artist mainly focused on new media and performance art. She lives and works in Rome. The focus of her work is always the body and its own narrative power. Inserted into this is an exuberant ‘multimedia pot’ wherein live video art pieces are mixed with generative audio, lo-fi technologies, and homemade interaction design devices, handicraft masks, bizarre costumes and steam-punk props.

Fini has participated in the 2011 WRO Biennale in Poland, the River-to-River Festival in New York, the ADD Digital Art Festival in Rome, the finals of Laguna International Art Prize in Venice, the Venice International Performance Art Week, the FILE Festival in Brazil, the Berlin Directors Lounge, the Ikono Tv Festival, and the Rapid Pulse Performance Art Festival in Chicago, among others. In 2014, she was selected for the Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition organized by Georgia Institute of Technology. She was also invited to Kolkata where she lectured and performed at the Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute.

In 2014, she participated in The Watermill Center’s International Summer Program. In 2015, she directed the first edition of HI> DANCE Festival in Rome, dedicated to contemporary dance and technology. In that same year she won the Prix Université Blaise Pascal des étudiants and the Prize Conseil Général du Puy-de-Dome during Videoformes Festival in Clermont-Ferrand. She is currently working on a new experimental feature film in collaboration with Cinecittà Istituto Luce.

Photo Credits: Performance at The Watermill Center International Summer Program (2014), image by Sam Khoshbin; performance Nuovo Cinema Palazzo, Rome, image by Ehrico Cocuccioni

The Watermill Center is committed to providing accessible programs and services for all patrons and artists with disabilities. For further information about any accessibility issues or needs, please contact us at +1 212 253 7484 or email us at info@watermillcenter.org