The director Giancarlo Soldi leads us into a journey that blends languages, atmospheres and worlds to shed light on the mysteries of Valentina, the enigmatic character created by Guido Crepax.
“Valentina è bella come Louise Brooks, disturbante come un taglio di Fontana, consapevole come una lirica di Bob Dylan e libera come la musica di Charlie Parker” (“Valentina is as beautiful as Louise Brooks, disturbing as Fontana's cuts, aware like Bob Dylan’s lyrics and free like Charlie Parker’s music”). And this suffices to understand just how impossible it is to put into words who Valentina really is. Thus, the task of portraying the comics heroine born from Guido Crepax’s dreams could only be entrusted to a director with a cross-media expertise, ranging from films to documentaries, up to video-installations, namely Giancarlo Soldi, who will depict Crepax’s creature in theatres during Lucca Comics & Games 2019. “Finding Valentina – The World of Guido Crepax” will be projected on Friday 1st November at 2:00 p.m. at Cinema Centrale, Lucca.
When it comes to comics, this is not Giancarlo Soldi’s first exploratory experience: he has already gazed through his considerate and inquisitive eyes into the worlds of Tex, Diabolik and Sclavi. With Valentina, he makes a further step into the narration of a reality only seemingly confined to his drawings, whilst he actually recounts the tale of an entire epoch. Thanks to the extraordinary richness of the Crepax archive, we plunge and emerge from his plates which come to life in unexpected ways.
“Finding Valentina – The World of Guido Crepax” is a film produced and distributed by Bizef Produzione, directed by Giancarlo Soldi, written by Giancarlo Soldi, Marco Lodoli and Stefania Casini, and it will be released on February 2020.
(Translated by S.S.M.L. Pisa)
