Dissemination

Screening of “DANTE” by Pupi Avati at Lethes Theater in Faro

---

The Italian Cultural Institute of Lisbon, the Honorary Consulate of Italy in Albufeira, and CIAC – the Centre for Research in Arts and Communication at the University of Algarve, in collaboration with the Faro City Council and supported by the União de Freguesias de Faro, present an exclusive screening of the film “Dante” by acclaimed director Pupi Avati. This film celebrates the life and work of the Supreme Poet, a figure who profoundly influenced the history and culture of Italy, Europe, and the entire Western world.

The screening, with free admission, will take place on Tuesday, 11th June at 21:00 at Teatro Lethes in Faro. The film will be shown in Italian with Portuguese subtitles and represents a unique opportunity to immerse oneself in the art and life of the Supreme Poet through the magnificent direction of Maestro Pupi Avati and the exceptional cast, featuring actor Sergio Castellitto as the poet Giovanni Boccaccio.

September 1350. Boccaccio is tasked with delivering ten gold florins, as a symbolic compensation, to Beatrice, Dante Alighieri’s daughter and a nun in Ravenna at the Monastery of Santo Stefano degli Ulivi. Dante died in exile in 1321, while his fame, thanks to the dissemination of the Comedy, spread everywhere. His last twenty years were very complicated, constantly on the run, seeking refuge in various courts, already condemned to the confiscation of his assets and to death by burning, a penalty extended to his male children who also fled Florence. Meanwhile, in the Tuscan municipality, the balance of power had shifted significantly, and the city sought to reconcile, albeit posthumously, with such a valuable fellow citizen. The ten florins were a symbolic compensation for the confiscation of his property and the death sentence decreed almost half a century earlier by the Florentine municipality. Against the part of the ecclesiastical world that considers the Comedy a diabolical work, Giovanni Boccaccio accepts this mission, convinced that he can conduct an investigation about Dante that will allow him to narrate his human story and the injustices he suffered.

During his journey, Boccaccio will encounter not only Dante’s daughter but also those who, in the last years of the Poet’s exile in Ravenna, gave him shelter and hospitality, and those who, conversely, rejected and forced him into further exile. As he travels from Florence to Ravenna, retracing parts of Dante’s own journey, stopping at the same convents, villages, castles, and libraries, Boccaccio pieces together Dante’s human story, eventually telling his entire story.

Pupi Avati is a renowned director, writer, producer, and screenwriter, winner of prestigious Italian cinema awards. The decision to make a film about Dante stems from the director’s desire to reveal the human story of the great Italian poet. A decisive factor for Avati was the discovery of the mission undertaken by Giovanni Boccaccio in 1350, recounted in the Trattatello in laude di Dante. The film combines elements of Boccaccio’s narration with conjectures and suggestions resulting from twenty years of the director’s study on Dante.

For Pupi Avati, conveying the figure of Beatrice Portinari, whose death inspired Dante’s Vita Nuova, was also crucial. The constant presence of suffering, both in Dante’s personal life and artistic production, is, according to Avati, “confirmation of how pain elevates the human being to a higher knowledge.”

---