LE MACABRE ROCK CLUB – LA FAMIGLIA DEL ROCK ITALIANO

Luca Busso, a writer author and director from Piedmont, trained at Dams in Bologna, where he graduated in film history. He made several short films. He was artistic director of the rock club Le Macabre and of the film festival Corto in Bra. He is the son of the founders of the club, where he spent most of the weekends of his youth.

 
Paola Cassano, Anthony Ettorre

Music and images, images and music. This indissoluble binomial is integral to the programming of the Pesaro Film Festival, because the ‘alchemies’ staged over ten years at the Wall of Sound, in the historical courtyard of Palazzo Gradari, have equally proposed so many forms of ‘new cinema.’ This year, the Wall is somehow ‘frozen’ (sleeping, waiting to be awakened), but a spin-off has emerged like a swelling of sounds and vision in the form of films. These are documentaries, or more precisely rockumentaries, made in Italy – scattered gems and independent documents that are often relegated to free web content or home video extras. At times, they are simply productions made to promote an album or to satisfy the most curious and demanding fans. The history of countercultures is brimming with small visual projects, such as low-budget works that are often never distributed and therefore rarely seen. And yet, their historical and political value is undeniable.

Roads to Nowhere – Sentieri del rock italiano is inaugurated by the premiere of La leggenda di Zagor, a special event held in Piazza del Popolo. The film directed by Filippo Biagianti and  Vittorio Ondedei is a tribute to Mirko Bertuccioli (aka Zagor Camillas), long-time friend of the Festival and a comrade of Vittorio Ondedei and Giuliano Antinori in the programming of stimuli and suggestions for the Wall of Sound. It was like an extension of his being a musician, poet, and performer.

The venue of the new section Roads to Nowhere – Sentieri del rock italiano will be the Teatro della Maddalena, where we will revisit several stories that have not received enough recognition. Our aim is to ‘scavenge’ rivers of musical memories with a shy, but proud selection offering fragments, places, stories, legends, and myths of contemporary Italian rock over five nights. These ‘paths of Italian rock’ will take us from the small tribute to Massimo Volume from two decades ago (Emidio Clementi was a guest of the Festival with his Quattro Quartetti along with Corrado Nuccini) to Offlaga Disco Pax (Max Collini/Jukka Reverberi with Spartiti also left their mark on the Wall of Sound); from the world of Le Macabre, the historical club located in a small town, down to the Sicily of Uzeda, with a long stop-over in Emilia. Here, accompanied by Freak Antoni, we will get embark on a psychedelic road movie.

This section is dedicated to Mirko Bertuccioli, Enrico Fontanelli, Steve Albini, Freak Antoni, and all those who, quoting Ruben Camillas, have scattered “glitter everywhere” leaving an invaluable, extraordinarily precious legacy in all of us. We must never lose sight of it.

Vittorio Ondedei

So, this is what happened. In early January 2025, the Wall of Sound located in the courtyard of Palazzo Gradari, still adorned with figures, echoes, light melodies, wild words, and unexpected forms of sound, turned into a cloud. The cloud mixed with the vanishing points of the cityscape, faded away, and then encountered the Film Festival once more. It rained into the Church of the Maddalena. Droplets can be found all over the Roads to Nowhere. Each of them is wearing flip-flops, as you will notice at the premiere of La leggenda di Zagor in the square. Will the next Wall of Sound be transparent and solid? Who knows…