Marina Cicogna, Pioneering Producer of Key Italian Movies, Dies at 89

Marina Cicogna, a movie producer and one of many first girls to ascertain herself within the historically male cinema atmosphere in Italy, died Saturday in Rome. She was 89.

Cicogna produced a number of vital Italian movies, together with Metti, una Sera a Cena by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi and Indagine su un Cittadino al di Sopra di Ogni Sospetto (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion) by Elio Petri, with the latter successful the Oscar for finest international language movie in 1971. The New York Occasions referred to as her “one of the crucial highly effective girls in European cinema.”

Her extraordinary expertise and profession have been recounted in 2021 within the documentary movie Marina Cicogna. Life and All the things Else by Andrea Bettinetti and in her autobiography, Ancora Spero, launched this 12 months by Marsilio Publishing.

Cicogna died with Benedetta Gardona, her companion of greater than 30 years, by her facet.

Forward of receiving the 2023 David Award for Lifetime Achievement this 12 months, Cicogna spoke to THR Roma about her life, her movies, her bond with Florinda Bolkan, the Movie Academy and the events “that haven’t been capable of happen since ’68.” And on being a girl within the golden age of the world of cinema, she stated, “Sure, the need to place you underneath was all there.”

Born in Rome on Could 29, 1934, Marina Cicogna Mozzoni Volpi di Misurata was an actress, photographer and screenwriter. Her grandfather was Rely Giuseppe Volpi, who was president of the Venice Biennale and founding father of the Venice Movie Pageant in 1932, after whom the Volpi Cup is called.

Raised between Milan, Venice, Cortina and Rome, she had frequented the world of the dolce vita. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence School in New York (Marguerite Yourcenar was amongst its professors), Cicogna attended a images faculty, but it surely was her friendship with Jack Warner’s daughter that launched her to Hollywood, the place she acquired to know, amongst others, Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall on the set of The right way to Marry a Millionaire (1953).

With Euro Worldwide Movies, bought by her household and managed together with her brother, Bino, who died by suicide in 1971, Cicogna distributed a lot of movies in Italy, from Sidney Lumet’s L’uomo del Banco dei Pegni (1964) to Luis Buñuel’s Bella di Giorno (1967) to producing her first movie, Metti, una Sera a Cena.

Extra of the profitable movies she distributed included Teorema to Medea by Pier Paolo Pasolini; La Classe Operaia va in Paradiso by Petri; Uomini Contro by Francesco Rosi; Mimì Metallurgico ferito nell’onore; Movie d’amore e d’anarchia by Lina Wertmüller; Brother Solar, Sister Moon by Franco Zeffirelli; and As soon as Upon a Time within the West by Sergio Leone.