Collectors, Amateur filmmaker and Film buffs

The library collection which belonged to Filippo Ferrazzano, amateur filmmaker, director, writer, journalist and lecturer, was donated by his sons in 2020. The collection includes rare publications on the theory and history of cinema, mostly from the 1930s and 1940s, as well as several issues of magazines that were largely used to fill in for missing editions of specialised film periodicals already owned by the Chiarini library, such as: “Altro cinema”, “Il cineamatore”, “Cinema ridotto” and “Passo ridotto”. All catalogued items are available for consultation by library users.

Filippo Ferrazzano (1915-1998) – An amateur filmmaker, director, writer, journalist and lecturer, he was awarded first prize at the Piacenza Amateur Dramatic Society’s theatre festival in 1949 and was nominated for the Vallombrosa Literary Prize in 1960. He was editor-in-chief for central and southern Italy of the newspaper “El progreso”, based in Caracas (Venezuela). He directed documentaries and short films and was among the founding promoters of FEDIC (Italian Film Clubs Federation), of which he became a board member. He also established the Piacenza Film Club. Further accolades include first place at the Lisbon International Kids Film Festival in 1954 with the short film “Il cielo risponde sempre”.  He co-wrote “Contributo per una storia del cinema d’amatore” with Gianni de Tomasi for the magazine “Il Cineamatore”, a twenty-two-part essay retracing in great detail all events relating to the field of short films from the post-war period to the 1960s. During the 1960s he worked in the film industry and then as a director for RAI, shooting reports for several information, economy, news and lifestyle programmes until the 1970s. In the following years he returned to writing.

This small corpus – donated to the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematrografia by Alberto Sciarretta’s children in 2017 – includes documents which he gathered over the course of his career.  The most notable pieces of the collection are two files of press reviews, a briefcase filled with photographs of film celebrities, personal documents and bound volumes of six years’ worth of issues of the monthly film, photography and figurative arts magazine «Ferrania:  rivista mensile di fotografia, cinematografia e arti figurative » , published between 1947 and 1967 by the photographic film manufacturing company of the same name.

Alberto Sciarretta (1921-2012) – Born in Pescara on 11th June 1921, he started off as a switchboard operator for Ferrania in 1936.  After the war and completing his education, he resumed his career at Ferrania, where he ultimately held the position of Director of the Rome branch; later he was Director of the film and television division of 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing) Italy. In 1976 he became Cinecittà’s Marketing Director and in 1978 European Coordinator and Italian Marketing Manager for Technicolor. After his retirement he performed consultation services for Italian and international film companies. He was President of UNIATEC and First Secretary of ATIC. He was awarded the honour of Commendatore della Repubblica for “his dedication and passion towards the art of cinema”.

The Library has recently acquired the collection of scriptments, scripts and documents that belonged to Emilio Vesperini who, between the mid-1970s and the late 1980s, held top positions in various companies within the Ente Autonomo di Gestione per il Cinema group.

This donation came about in 2024 at the behest of his heirs and includes 32 film projects, such as La ciurma by Michelangelo Antonioni, Il caso Schreber by Cecilia Mangini and Lino Del Fra, and I tempi della fine by Fabrizio Onofri and Gillo Pontecorvo. All such projects used to be submitted to Vesperini by their directors and screenwriters for him to inspect and in order to obtain his opinion and approval. They embrace different genres and involve some of the most important names in Italian cinema.

Some of the titles in the collection include: Il tempo dell’inizio by Luigi Di Gianni (1974), Il sospetto by Francesco Maselli (1975), Al di là del bene e del male by Liliana Cavani (1977), Una casa in bilico by Antonietta De Lillo and Giorgio Magliulo (1986), L’inchiesta by Damiano Damiani (1986), Roma occupata (1984) and Remake by Ansano Giannarelli (1987),  La coda del diavolo by Giorgio Treves (1987), Good Morning Babilonia by Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani (1987), L’arte e la società by Emidio Greco (1988), A proposito di quella strana ragazza by Marco Leto (1989), Il nodo alla cravatta by Alessandro Di Robilant (1991), Adelaide by Lucio Gaudino (1992) and Anni ribelli by Rosalia Polizzi (1994).

For further information see the complete list of items.

Emilio Vesperini (1925-1989) – Born in Rome in June 1925, he moved with his family to the Testaccio district in 1936, where he spent fifteen years that were crucial to his upbringing. There, he befriended the Di Genova brothers, who introduced him to Russian, French and American literature, and began secretly reading anti-fascist texts. He studied at the Virgilio classical high school and developed a strong connection with his uncle Italo Tomassi, a well-known film set designer.

After the war, Vesperini was very involved in political and cultural activities, most notably rebuilding the Testaccio precinct of the Italian Socialist Party and working on the establishment of a library. He became acquainted with the anthropologist Ernesto De Martino, with whom he developed a long-lasting friendship, and regularly attended his lectures.

In those same years, he also attended the Einaudi bookshop in Via degli Uffici del Vicario – at the time a buzzing cultural and political centre – where he was introduced to characters such as Elio Vittorini, Cesare Pavese and Natalia Ginzburg.

Being a great film enthusiast, he was actively involved in the activities of the ‘Charlie Chaplin’ club, Rome’s first post-war film club. In the meantime, he pursued philosophy at the Sapienza University of Rome, attending lectures by illustrious professors such as Carlo Antoni and Guido Calogero.

In the early 1950s, Vesperini was hired at Cinecittà with an administrative qualification and set out on a brilliant career journey that would lead him, between the 1970s and 1980s, to the top administrative positions within the three companies of the national film group (Istituto Luce, Cinecittà and Italnoleggio) and, ultimately, at the Ente Autonomo di Gestione per il Cinema itself. In those years, he established and strengthened friendships with important film critics (including Argentieri and Callisto Cosulich) and directors (such as Ettore Scola, Federico Fellini, Carlo Lizzani, Sergio Leone, Citto Maselli, Giuseppe De Santis and the Taviani brothers).

In 1987, Vesperini was awarded the title of Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana and, in 1988, he received the gold medal at the 23rd annual Una vita per il cinema.

Despite his professional commitments, he always continued to cultivate his love of culture, as demonstrated by his vast personal library, now housed at the Antonio Baldini State Library (https://bibliotecabaldini.cultura.gov.it/fondo-emilio-vesperini/). Emilio Vesperini died in Rome in February 1989, leaving a legacy of intellectual commitment and love for cinema.