Anthology Film Archives

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CIPRÌ & MARESCO: CYNICAL TV

December 18 – December 21

December 18-21, 2026

“Who are those two? They look like horse thieves!” –Samuel Fuller, upon catching sight of Ciprì & Maresco for the first time

When “Cinico TV” first aired on Italian state television in 1991 it almost felt like an unacceptable interference, an offense to good taste. Shot in apocalyptic black & white, the shorts Daniele Ciprì and Franco Maresco made for this visionary slot on public television pay witness to the insufficiency of realism to capture the human condition in all its pitiful and comic tragedy. Set in the ruined outskirts of the Sicilian capital, Palermo, populated by human wrecks, all males, these fulminating films marked a cinematographic point of no return. Whereas to a Pasolini the lumpen proletariat, encroached on but still untouched by consumer civilization, carried a possibility of redemption, the characters of Ciprì & Maresco inhabit an immoral space beyond hope. Their cinema is devoid of any paternalistic or pedagogical lesson; the monstrosity they film with corrosive irony holds up a mirror to a reality too catastrophic to accept. Grotesque and metaphysical, the ruined cosmology of “Cinico TV” represents a unicum in Italian cinema, maybe even a terminus. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of their artistic partnership, Anthology presents a selection of sketches Ciprì & Maresco made for “Cinico TV”, alongside short films they made in the same years (1989-96).

Guest-programmed by Giovanni Vimercati, who wrote the introduction and program descriptions. The “Cinico TV” sketches are untitled; the titles indicated below (in brackets) were assigned by Giovanni Vimercati for this film series.

All films courtesy of Archivio Ciprì & Maresco / Lumpen Film.

Special thanks to Francesco Guttuso (Lumpen Film).

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