The Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève presents five short films from the self-taught director Alessio Di Zio. Born in 1992, Di Zio directed his first films when he was 16 years old.

Fanteria cavalleggeri (25min, 2012) is a documentary about the recreational circles that appeared in the interwar period in a provincial town. The film observes a group made up entirely of senior citizens who are absolutely determined to enjoy themselves. The settings evoke memories of a past that may have never actually existed, with a common and recurring aesthetic in which wartime images frequently play a part, alongside locations steeped in visual images that are perhaps slightly stereotyped. This anachronistic atmosphere is accentuated by the artist’s treatment, as he filmed it with a broken camera, enveloping the images of a green mist.

In Notes towards a movie on Rodolfo Valentino (15min, 2011), Di Zio tells the daily life of Rodolfo Valentino, a silent recluse reduced to living in isolation in an abandoned pub, without running water or electricity far from reality and the outside world.

Alessio Di Zio is a film director, producer and musician. In 2008, he made his directorial debut shooting two music videos for the German electronic duo “Sankt Otten”. In 2009, at the age of 17, he wrote and directed “Le favole di Casimiro”, his first “low-budget” non-narrative film. Within a few months Di Zio’s works have been shown in many film festivals and exhibitions throughout the world, gaining international.