Armando Testa: poor but modern

Areas - Music & Performing

Armando Testa: poor but modern Documentary

Code: 020147

Fifty minutes of images and music to tell the life story of Armando Testa, Italy's foremost advertising executive who also had a passion for painting, showing even there great sensitivity and depth. 'Povero ma moderno' (Poor but modern) “signed by Pappi Corsicato” is the title of the documentary produced by Baires and Little Bull, and distributed by Rai Trade, to be presented on September 5th (with English subtitles) in the section 'Orizzonti' at the 66th Venice Film Festival. The documentary was supported by the Piemonte Doc Film Fund with additional contributions by the Film Commission Torino Piemonte. Shot in Turin in Red, the latest digital technology, it tells the story of a creative genius, a trail blazing advertising executive who was at the same time a fine contemporary artist. The images used by Corsicato for the documentary are from the Rai Archives and the personal collection of Ms. Gemma De Angelis Testa and Armando Testa spa. The commercials that marked an era, the interviews with Armando Testa, his paintings, the female protagonists of his publicity, all in a mix with a creative avant-garde that took off in the Fifties. Pappi Corsicato has recreated the world of Testa in fifty minutes of restored interviews, newly-shot images and excerpts of commercials that became milestones in the history of Italian advertising: from Lavazza Coffee's Caballero and Carmencita, Sasso Olive Oil, Peroni Beer featuring Solvi Stubing, to Papalla, and Pippo invented for Lines napkins. The leading image of ‘Poor but modern’ is from the work of the photographer Ferdinando Cioffi.