Mourning in the world of Italian fantasy
A sad news has shocked the world of Italian literature. The writer Valerio Evangelisti, one of the most important names in Italian fantasy, a genre that was able to make his own by skilfully mixing horror colors, has died at the age of 69.Writer Valerio Evangelisti has died
The announcement came with a statement from Potere al Popolo, a political group in which he had been active for some time and for which he had run for the Bologna city council in the last elections. He also recently spoke at the assembly Let's Disarm the War, carrying out his ideas consistently.
The work it became a bestseller as well as the best-selling issue of Urania of the year: something that has never happened before for an Italian writer. Among his best-known works are also Magus. The novel of Nostradamus, a trilogy of writings centered on the figure of the famous soothsayer, and several cycles of historical and adventure novels such as the Tortuga Pirates Cycle and the Cycle of The Sun of the Future with laborers and peasants from Romagna.
Evangelisti, finally, was also the founder and director of the Carmillaonline portal. In recent years he had returned to writing about Eymerich with two new novels, Eymerich Risorge and The Ghost of Eymerich. Unfortunately, in 2009 he had undergone the removal of a lung due to a tumor in the lymphatic system which he had managed to defeat in any case.
The news of Valerio's disappearance was greeted by numerous messages of condolence on social media , testimony of how his contribution in the world of Italian literature, and beyond, will remain indelible.
'Drive My Car' wins Oscar award for best international film
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The emotional epic from Japan “Drive My Car” won the Academy Award for best international feature film Sunday night.
Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi's film became the fifth from Japan to win the Oscar, the first since “Departures” in 2008.
The win for the three-hour journey through grief, connection and art spawned its own mini-drama when Hamaguchi took the stage at the Dolby Theatre to accept it. He paused for applause, and the show’s director then started the music to cue him to leave the stage, but he objected.
“I’d like to thank all the members of the academy for having us here,” Hamaguchi said, then thanked the distributors of the film for bringing it to the United States.
“Just a moment,' he said, to laughs from the audience. He then thanked his actors, “especially Toko Miura, who drove the Saab 900 beautifully in the film,' and paused again for applause. Another musical cue followed, and Hamaguchi tried to restart yet again, but he was led off stage.
Many on social media decried what they regarded as the disrespectful treatment of the director in the moment.
With four Oscar nominations, including the first best picture nomination for a Japanese film, and several early wins in awards season that made it appear to be a best picture frontrunner, no one was surprised by Sunday's win for “Drive My Car.”
But it beat a strong field of critics' favorites and crowd pleasers, including Italy’s “The Hand of God,” Denmark’s “Flee,” Bhutan’s “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom,' and Norway's “The Worst Person in the World,” which some observers predicted might pull of an upset.
“Drive My Car' based on a short story from novelist Haruki Murakami, centers on a theater actor, Yûsuke Kafuku, played by Hidetoshi Nishijima, directing a multilingual production of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.” Still mourning the death of his wife, Kafuku leads the cast in rehearsals where the actors sit and read their lines flatly, ingesting the language for days before acting it out.
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The films of the 43-year-old Hamaguchi, who also released the anthology film “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” last year, are acclaimed around the world, but he was not widely known in Hollywood before a win for best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival last year started to bring attention to “Drive My Car.'
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