The Bertolucci family is a unique and irreplicable exemplar of Italian cultural history. Bernardo Bertolucci once spoke of imprinting, the poetic work of Attilio, one of the last century’s most important voices: “The imprinting is that poetry is something that’s around the house, you just have to look and it’s there”.
It’s easy to imagine that the Bertolucci Archive is also a unique case. Not only are its contents extraordinarily abundant and diverse, but more importantly perhaps no other family in the world had such an open, productive and multi-faceted relationship with the art forms of the last two centuries – from poetry to photography, theater, narrative cinema, documentaries and theatrical videos – or had established such intense and lively relations with the intellectuals of twentieth-century Italy. Undertaking a comprehensive project with the Bertolucci Family Archive means acquiring a new vantage point and indispensable resource for a deeper understanding of the history of twentieth-century Italy.
Across each phase, the project will follow two tracks: the profound, special relationship of Attilio, Giuseppe and Bernardo’s work with the local territory and its innate international calling. The project has two objectives: to preserve the archive’s paper materials, digitize them and make them accessible, for the first time, with a modern transparent system that links them with other existing archives (for example Cineteca di Bologna’s Pasolini Archive) and to continue the restoration of Giuseppe and Bernardo Bertolucci’s films, which began in 2017 with 1900.
Created as a permanent resource for studying the works of Bernardo, Giuseppe and Attilio, BernardoBertolucci.org is also a space for consulting this extraordinary archive.
The Bertolucci Archive Project is promoted and supported by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, the City of Parma, Fondazione Solares, Fondazione Monte Parma, Clare Peploe and the friends of Bernardo Bertolucci.