Daily life of a bolognese family
The life on film of the land surveyor Angelo Selleri and his wife, Adele Messiere, a teacher, and their three children. In the Selleri family’s films, almost exclusively filmed by Angelo in 8mm, comes up a vivid portrait of the petty bourgeoisie observing and documenting their lifestyle.
Beside the scenes of family life in Bologna and some other beach and mountain villages, other scenes focused in daily life and workplaces are specially interesting: fishing in the venetian “laguna”, the Bologna airport in 1962, the rice fields and peasants of Campotto d’Argenta in the early 60s, a girl-scouts meeting in Pontecchio Marconi, in the bolognese hills, in the early 60s, the port of Ravenna and fishermen working in their boats, some takes of the SAROM (Società Anonima Raffinazione Oli Minerali) refinery, the 1961 total eclipse taken from the Bologna Astronomical Observatory, the Loiano astronomic station, the last time a tramway went across Bologna, on November 3rd 1963, the construction of the Brisighella aqueduct, supervised by Selleri himself, and a day at the montessorian kindergarden Carducci (Bologna) in 1966.
The user can explore the collection through a wide selection of sequences filmed by Angelo Selleri. It is possible to watch the digitalized films in chronological order or through the menu. The short texts inserted in the movie titles, in the explanatory notes or overlapped, introduce, contextualize and give precise information about the people, places and situations we can find on these films. The information was collected through research, documentation and cataloguing. The videos were edited using Klynt software tool.
(texts written by Karianne Fiorini)
Main characters
Angelo Selleri was born in Bologna on September 24th 1926. He grew up in a traditional and wealthy family of merchants, he attended the National High School for Commerce and Surveyors Crescenti-Pacinotti of Bologna. He graduated at 19 years old, at the end of World War II, and worked for a while in a construction company. After his two-year military service he opened a small construction business specialized in roads, bridges and aqueducts.
During the post-war years he collaborates a lot with the scouts, but he had been a passionate amateur photographer since his youth, and through photography he is able to depict many different aspects of working life, some of them casual. Besides of photography, he developed a passion about cinema, and thus he would film different events, places, professions and traditions and whatever deserved to be filmed and preserved for the future according to him. He married Adele Messieri on October 18th 1959, and she will give him three children: Maria (Bologna, September 21st 1960), Pietro (Bologna, October 8th 1961) and Carlo (Bologna, January 6th 1966). In the mid 60s he decides to quit working as a surveyor to work as a farmer, after having received some land in San Lazzaro di Savena (Bologna) from his parents. Angelo Selleri died on August 12th 2005.
The Collection
The Angelo Selleri collection was donated by his wife, Adele Messieri, to the National Home Movies Archive on June 5th 2008. The films were kept until then in the Selleri’s home and were filmed in 9,5 and 8mm. After purchasing the material, the films were restored and digitalized. The films were organized with the help of Adele Messieri, trough the information given by her during several meetings between 2008 and 2009.
The collection consists in 38 9,5 mm and 8 mm rolls of different length filmed between 1949 and 1979, for a total length of 7 hours. The films are most of all home movies and are focused in the lives of the amateur director, his wife Adele Messieri and their three children Maria (1960), Pietro (1961) and Carlo (1966). The first roll was filmed on 1949 in 9,5 mm Pathè Baby by an unknown cameraman and shows a lunch at the workplace of Albino Messieri, father of Adele Messieri, in which a very young Adele appears for a few seconds. The other movies were filmed from 1959 on, during the marriage of Adele Messieri and Angelo Selleri, celebrated in the Rastellino church, in Castelfranco Emilia, on October 18th 1959. It was filmed in black and white and color by two different cameramen, both friends of the marrying couple.
The life on film of the land surveyor Angelo Selleri and his wife, Adele Messiere, a teacher, and their three children. In the Selleri family’s films, almost exclusively filmed by Angelo in 8mm, comes up a vivid portrait of the petty bourgeoisie observing and documenting their lifestyle.
Beside the scenes of family life in Bologna and some other beach and mountain villages, other scenes focused in daily life and workplaces are specially interesting, such as: fishing in the venetian “laguna”, the Bologna airport in 1962, the rice fields and peasants of Campotto d’Argenta in the early 60s, a girl-scouts meeting in Pontecchio Marconi, in the bolognese hills, in the early 60s, the port of Ravenna and fishermen working in their boats, some takes of the SAROM (Società Anonima Raffinazione Oli Minerali) refinery, the 1961 total eclipse taken from the Bologna Astronomical Observatory, the Loiano astronomic station, the last time a tramway went across Bologna, on November 3rd 1963, the construction of the Brisighella aqueduct, supervised by Selleri himself, and a day at the montessorian kindergarden Carducci (Bologna) in 1966.