Il Contratto (1953)
2-19 CUT 1 23 Mins
Original archival 16mm film transferred to SD video.
Ettore Siracusa
IL CONTRATTO
Project Title: FILM SILENT
1 – Summary of Project
FILM SILENT proposes the production and exhibition of a multimedia video project comprising a suite of six, non-fiction digital films, for presentation on a cinema screen, and video installation in a gallery space.
The series of films are based on an archival feature film, Il Contratto (1953), directed by Giorgio Mangiamele with other migrants enacting a social drama of their migrant lives in the new country: a film left unfinished and soundless.
‘Il Contratto’ has been the subject of several critical studies from film scholars and writers, (Lampugnani, Tuccio, Moliterno, Turnour) and the National Film and Sound Archive for its significant artistic contribution to Australian cinema and narratives of post war immigration in Melbourne.
2 – Creative Rationale
FILM SILENT presents scenes and image fragments from the silent film, Il Contratto, with video enactments and spaces, inhabited by thought-images (remembrances, sensations) that come to pass a film viewer-narrator, watching and listening to the silent images of the originating film.
Comments from a reader of the script and viewing the film:
I’ve watched Il Contratto and found it a fascinating experience. The absence of sound made for a depersonalising experience. My thoughts drifting to the sociological context of the film, while speculating about the construction of the film’s narrative and edit itself.
I felt the humanising effect of the characters, (the viewer) at times unaware of their goals and actions, but drawn into the drama by their gestures, facial expressions, and strong sense of friendship with each other.
This is me saying that I found real resonance in your script. I think your interplay between sound, archive imagery, and methods of exhibition could come together fantastically.
3 – Synopsis of the Six Films
Film One: Narration + Visual Alterations
The film source, Il Contratto, edited in 47 SEGMENTS; its duration shortened from 90 mins to 24mins with the additions of: (a) visual alterations, (b) text-on-screen narration, (c) archival audiovisual materials.
Film Two: Spaces and Enactments
FILM SEG-01 to SEG-04
Three Viewers watching silent film scenes and image fragments of Il Contratto on various screens, settings and times.
Film Two Intervals
FIM SEG-05 TO SEG-14
Transitional sequences of urban environments (inner city), streets, sky, light, and weather.
Film Three: Soundtrack (Sound Play for Unmade Film)
FILM, SEG-15 to SEG-47
Soundtrack: The narrative drama continues to unfold alongside a set of music and sound interludes.
Film Four: Basement, Street Scene, Cinematographer
A ‘visitation’ to the uninhabited basement room of Giorgio Mangiamele’s former house and photography studio and where work on Il Contratto and his other films took place; the street adjoining to the house used as ‘outdoor studio’; Photographs of G M taken over period of production of films 1953-1968 and later years.
Film Five: Gestures
Gestures of intimacy and friendship enacted in Il Contratto are reflected (represented) in in a series of short tableaux-enactments of affective bodily gestures and settings.
Film Six: Walks
Urban Landscape: A documentary of various urban landscape, soundscapes, industrial ruins and human encounters.
Note Film Titles are provisional working titles.
6 – Link for viewing, Il Contratto.
Two Versions: 1. The original archival source Duration 92 mins; 2, The edited 22 mins version with some visual alterations.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hza3E6Dmf7ivdD5BDaLzp-_zdqUozpug?usp=drive_link
7 – Notes on production and exhibition.
Each one of the six films have been conceived to be produced as six non-fiction films for the cinema screen and/or for single channel or multi-channels exhibition for a gallery space.
Design of the multi-channel video and sound installation
While there are several sketched out ideas and suggestions, work on detailed development of form and spatial design, visual content of each channel, duration and timing, would be deferred until postproduction, when all video episodes, as scripted, are shot and assembled and composition of the soundtrack of music has reached an advanced stage of development and completion.
Ettore Siracusa
Oct, 2025