The stars of the first Manintown Next Generation Awards

MANINTOWN NEXT GENERATION AWARDS

A project conceived by Federico Poletti and Davide Musto

#VENEZIA78 marked the first brick in the great work done by MANINTOWN MAGAZINE over the years with the aim of supporting and promoting cinema and its new talents. Italy has been such a rich and free country in the expression of audiovisuals like never before. Starting from an intuition of Federico Poletti, director of the magazine MANINTOWN, who has been able to combine the two cinema and fashion in such a way that they can draw from each other in a virtuous way in the common sign of communicating the new phenomena in creativity. Assisted by Fabrizio Imas (journalist) and Davide Musto (photographer and talent scout for the new generation), the Manintown Next Generation Awards” took place at the Venice Biennale in the beautiful setting of the Campari terrace on the Lido. The two winners in the cinema section of this first edition were Ludovica Francesconi and Giancarlo Commare. Elisa Maino, an Italian web talent who is also coming out with a new book, was awarded as a web phenomenon.


Ph Camillo Carobi


Federico Poletti, founder & Editor in chief of MANINTOWN: “Between the web and paper, we have always reported everything that is innovative, and over time we have given voice to numerous performers, who we have seen grow thanks to new platforms such as Netflix and social media. I am particularly happy with this first edition of the Next Generation Awards, which bet on Giancarlo Commare and Ludovica Francesconi, who had their first red carpet with us in Venice and are out with many new productions. Now the appointment with cinema will continue with the Rome Film Festival where we will present the special dedicated to the award and the new collector’s paper issue”.


Ryan Prevedel


Davide Musto, photographer & head of scouting at MANINTOWN: “I have the good fortune to follow with a keen eye the evolution of new talents and socio-cultural changes that the world of cinema and its young actors give us on a daily basis. I am constantly searching for and discovering new faces, which I accompany with fashion stories. The choice of the two finalists came naturally. I have been following Commare since he appeared in the Skam series and since then I have always wanted to capture his face with my camera. Over the years, Giancarlo Commare has been able to portray different roles with that fine truth that belongs only to great actors, and he has been able to modernise the ability to be a person as well as a character. I also had the honour of having already worked with Ludovica Francesconi and from the very first shot her gaze penetrated so deeply into my lens that it was natural to think about the future of this young actress, which I believe will be marked by great performances”.

Fabrizio Imas, Entertainment Editor of MANINTOWN, concludes: “Sometimes betting on a talent can be very complex, as a project may go well or very well and then the opportunities may be missed. As fate would have it, the two winners were two actors whose destinies have just artistically crossed. In fact, from 16 September we will see them in the cinema together in the film “Ancora più bello”, the eagerly awaited sequel to “Sul più bello”.



Special thanks for Hair&makeup of the talents Kemon

Production and coordination @Alessia Caliendo

Hair @kemonofficial @kemoncrew

Make up @ArmaniBeauty #ArmaniBeautyStars

Photos Camillo Carobi @itm.srl

Sergio Fiorentino, an artist who translates the charm of “his” Noto into unique paintings and artworks

For the 48-year-old artist Sergio Fiorentino, from Catania but now transplanted to Noto, the city of Syracuse represented a fundamental turning point, a watershed in his work and existential path: having fallen in love with the cradle of Baroque, unique for its lights, colors, inspirations and sensations, he moved there permanently, using a space in the refectory of an 18th century convent as his studio. He has therefore resumed painting, a passion put aside after his studies at the Academy of Design and Visual Communication Abadir to devote himself to the sale (and restoration) of design objects, pouring into the paintings a vision that could be defined as classically contemporary, defined by portraits, faces and figures rendered in quick and decisive brushstrokes in shades of blue, red, brown and white, then manipulated through scratches, abrasions and buffering that give an evanescent air to the whole, accentuating the feeling of silent immobility, suspension that characterizes the canvas.

Fiorentino’s artworks, exhibited in the permanent collections of several museums (including the MacS and the Fondazione La Verde La Malfa in his hometown), have been included in numerous trade fairs and exhibitions hosted by various museum institutions, from the Musei Civici to the Eremitani in Padua, to the Roman gallery RvB Arts, from the Fondazione Mazzullo in Taormina to the American Palm Beach Art Fair.We met him in his house-studio in Noto, right in the center of the town that has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 2002, full of finished works or works in progress, manifestations of an all-round creative flair that also finds application in furniture and objects that escape classification. 



When and how did you start painting?

“After studying restoration and, later, painting at the Abadir Academy in Catania, my passion turned into work, with the opening of a small gallery in town where I sold – and restored, too – design objects of the twentieth century, from futurism to the ’60s. Ten years ago, when I came to Noto by chance, I fell in love with it, finding myself changing my life from one day to the next; I closed the store, which was doing very well, and I started painting again. The first exhibition came with Vincenzo Medica, despite the fact that years have passed, it still seems like a dream, it’s a great fortune to be able to turn what you love into work, into life tout court”

From Catania to Noto, people continue to reach you and your atelier has become a local place to be

“In fact, a lot of people have passed through my studio, and the place, inside the former refectory of an eighteenth-century convent, is wonderful. Although they are separated only by an hour’s drive, Catania and Noto in my opinion could not be more different: the first is all black, lava, dominated by an active volcano, pervaded by a great energy, a whole other world compared to the second, completely white, suspended, metaphysical.”

Has the atmosphere of Noto, with the light, the sky, the unique colors, influenced your work?

“Certainly, it’s here that I resumed painting, such a context can only be present, starting with the blue, which in my idea is a sort of amniotic liquid in which the figures begin to form; my painting is visually linked to the sky of Noto, the complexion of the faces recalls instead the plaster, the stones, the walls of the buildings, with all the cracks and signs of time, not to mention the suspended energy that is felt, especially in winter.”


What techniques do you use to intervene on the paintings?

“I usually make faces or bodies in blue (a shade that is present in all my works, even when it’s not immediately visible), then I paint the complexion in oil and, when the color is still fresh, I scratch it, almost to the point of flaking it, so as to bring out the background, as happens in the series of portraits with plants where, after the first draft, I intervened by removing the material and making the leaves come out.”

Or in the series of bodies…

“Exactly, I did the same in the paintings about the divers, figures in blue that are suspended, immobile, without a point of departure or arrival, as if they were crystallized forever in the dimension of the painting.”

What else are you currently working on?

“To a series of furnishings in materials typical of the Sicilian decorative arts of the eighteenth century, in particular of the Trapanese, which boasts an extraordinary tradition with workers who, even at that time, used silver, brass, coral or lapislazzulo. For example, I’m working on a piece of furniture with garfish, a link to the Dreamers’ paintings with fish: these are limited editions, nine unique pieces, each one different from the other. Then there are two pieces of furniture with very thin wires running through a brass plate, filled with lapis lazuli powder in shades of blue or red coral powder.

Among the works in progress there is also a creation in embossed copper, born from a chance encounter with a very good craftsman whom I saw in action, an exponent of the third generation of a family of puppeteers; together we made this kind of sculpture, a totem with two modules. In the past, instead, I have made ceramics inspired by my recurring themes, such as that of the divers”.


Who are the artists and designers you are inspired by?

“There are many, from Ico Parisi and Gio Ponti to a painter like Antonio Donghi (a leading exponent of magical realism, ed.), the latter excites me for his ability to portray figures of everyday life as if they were “embalmed”, frozen in time; It reminds me of the Sicilian tradition of the bambinelli or papier-mâché statues, it’s as if he put them inside a glass bell, stopping them forever, in some ways I also try to fix an instant, as in diving, which we are used to seeing as a moving image and in my paintings become, instead, a fraction of a second eternally suspended.

I love what is ancient, I like to create works that have a current language and at the same time linked to the past, this is also true for the paintings, in which the faces are of real people, who for various reasons have a meaning for me, inserting them in the canvas, however, I try to extract them from the space-time dimension, in fact there are never references to places or times, in some cases even to gender, so that some subjects could be male or female, as if they came from another planet.”

How would you describe your style?

“When I paint I strive to be as essential as possible, both in terms of imagery and color rendering: I basically use four colors, white for light, a brown shade for shadows, and two opposite hues, red (which in my vision is the soul, the spirit) and blue, which represents flesh, the matter.”

Discover more about the artist  SergioFiorentino 

https://sergiofiorentino.it/About

Ph. Davide Musto

Next Generation Awards: Manintown’s award to support new talents

VENICE, Friday 11 September, MAINTOWN presents the first edition of the NEXT GENERATION AWARDS, a new project that underlines the magazine’s further commitment to scouting new talent in the world of cinema and creativity. The link with cinema and the performing arts has become stronger and stronger over the last year to the point of becoming a real editorial focus of MANINTOWN, intended as a platform to discover the most promising names in cinema, music and communication field (including photographers, directors and digital artists).

Hence the need to give greater substance to this passion with the NEXT GENERATION AWARDS initiative, which finds its ideal and natural setting in Venice during the International Film Festival.

Federico Poletti, founder & Editor in chief of MANINTOWN, comments: “Since its inception in 2013, the magazine’s vocation has been oriented towards researching all that is innovative and reporting on emerging phenomena in fashion and the arts, from cinema to music, from art to design. Over time we have given voice to numerous performers, who we have seen grow up, also thanks to new platforms such as Netflix and social networks. Therefore, in addition to the two awards for new faces in cinema, it seemed interesting to me to give space to a phenomenon that comes from the web as well”.

The award winning of this first edition of the NEXT GENERATION AWARDS are:

– Best actor revelation: GIANCARLO COMMARE

– Best actress revelation: LUDOVICA FRANCESCONI

– Web talent of the Year: ELISA MAINO

Giancarlo Commare (born in 1991) has made his mark in series such as Netflix’s “Skam Italia“, and in the recent “Maschile Singolare“, a homosexual-themed film with a realistic narrative that has made a difference in filmmaking. A face that is growing with quality productions between cinema and theatre. We are going to see him shortly in cinemas from 16 September with “Ancora più bello” alongside Ludovica Francesconi. Therefore, we want to recognise his talent with the MANINTOWN New Generation Awards. Giancarlo Commare himself comments: “I like surprises, and the communication of this award was a surprise from every point of view. We all go through times that are a little down, and especially in those moments, good news helps and is more appreciated. We should always be surprised by life and be grateful for everything we are given.



Ludovica Francesconi (born in 1999), very young, with a face that you can’t help but fall in love with for its freshness and spontaneity. Also she is back from the great success of “Sul più bello” that we have seen on Amazon Prime Video, and now we will see her always at the side of Giancarlo in: “Ancora Più Bello”. She has always wanted to be an actress since she was a child when she could smell the popcorn. We are sure that her path will be full of awards and we want to be the first to award her with the MANINTOWN New Generation Awards as Best Revelation Actress.



Elisa Maino, born in 2003, with over 5 million followers on Tik Tok and almost 3 million on Instagram, is one of the most successful Italian web talents of her generation at an international level. Since opening her YouTube channel in 2014, Elisa has never stopped talking about herself and her passions on social media, becoming the inspirational muse of a generation. Passionate about writing, she has published two novels with Rizzoli: the first, “OPS”, has sold more than 100 thousand copies throughout Italy. The second, “OPS2 – Non ti scordar di me”, is a publishing success. Her third novel, “Con amore”, is due out on 20 September 2021.



Davide Musto, photographer & head of scouting at MANINTOWN: “I have the good fortune of following with a keen eye the evolution of new talents and socio-cultural changes that the world of cinema and its young actors give us every day. I am constantly searching for new faces and discovering them, which I accompany with fashion stories.  The choice of the two finalists came naturally. I have been following Commare since he appeared in the Skam series and from that moment on I have always wanted to capture his face with my camera. Over the years, Giancarlo Commare has been able to portray different roles with that fine truth that belongs only to great actors, and he has been able to modernise the ability to be a person as well as a character. I also had the honour of having already worked with Ludovica Francesconi and from the very first shot her gaze penetrated so deeply into my lens that it was natural to think about the future of this young actress, which I believe will be marked by great performances”.

The award ceremony will take place on Friday, September 10, from 6:30 p.m. in the Campari Lounge | Terrazza Biennale and the winners will be the subject of a special report in the next issue of MANINTOWN to be published during the Rome Film Festival. In order to reaffirm the link with young creatives, MANINTOWN has chosen to have the NEXT GENERATIONS AWARD made by the Italian-Colombian artist Rosana Auqué, who created 3 works for the 3 winners to bear witness to the magic of the Venetian landscape and the art of cinema. Rosana herself says: “I wanted to convey the enchanting atmosphere of Venice, its infinite beauty and its great history. The magic of the landscape that mixes the sky with the city’s most characteristic element, the water, creating inexhaustible shades loved by so many artists. It is no coincidence that a King of France said “If I were not King of France, I would choose to be a citizen of Venice.”

The professional team of Kemon, visionary international leader in the world of hairstyling, will take care of the image of the two winners Giancarlo Commare and Ludovica Francesconi and the special guests of the event, as well as a series of talents that will be revealed in the next issue of MANINTOWN.

“Cinema has changed with the pandemic, but not in all ways for the worse, as the success of digital platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime has shown. Today we have the awareness that we obviously need to get people back into cinemas and back to safety, but we also have a flood of extra productions that can give work to actors, actresses and workers. Italian cinema was at a standstill for a moment, and it seemed that it could not evolve, but now we have a new generation of amazing and skilled actors. This is precisely why at MANINTOWN we wanted to give young talents a lot of space right from the start, especially looking at the publishing industry, which perhaps continued to talk about young talents through the same people, who were no longer so young. The cinema must be a safe home for experimentation, and only those who have the freshness and talent with a touch of irony will be able to carry the flag of Italian cinema around the world, just as Italy has always done. We must work so that those who deserve it can emerge, have fun and entertain audiences at home, because, let’s always remember it, cinema is entertainment,” concludes Fabrizio Imas, Entertainment Editor of MANINTOWN.

WHERE AND WHEN

Campari Lounge | Terrazza Biennale – Venezia Lido (in front of the Palazzo del Casinò) Friday 10 September, from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m.

To register for the event: [email protected]