Giannalberto Bendazzi
Most of all, I love poetry, art, music, cinema and, of course, animation. I maintain that animation is an art form per se, not a film genre, and that it can boast marvelous masterpieces. I am a historian. My opinion is that a historian should study the past to work in the present and shape the future. This is why I love teaching and working with young people. What exactly do I teach? No, no. Not animation. I teach liberty. I teach my students how to freely use ther minds.
Biography
At 21 I became one of the youngest Italian daily film critic, but soon I was dissatisfied with journalism, which was becoming more and more popular in the bad sense of the word. Hence I devoted my free time to essays and books, both on live action and animation film. By the mid-1980s, I chose to investigate animation only, and in 2000 I turned to University teaching. My best years were 2013 and 2014, as a Visiting Professor at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.Education
-
Master Degree, Universita' degli Studi di Milano, 1971.
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
-
To be a good scholar of animation I need to be knowledgeable in live action film, performing arts, literature, art and design, music, history, anthropology, mass-media theory and more.These are my areas of research, and they are all inspiring.
Personal Interests
-
As a very atypical Italian, I don't like wine, spaghetti, pizza, tiramisu, espresso, soccer, motorcycles, opera, fashion, and mandolin. My personal interests most of the time overlap with my professional ones.
Websites
Books
News
New Book: "Twice the First"
By: Giannalberto Bendazzi
Subjects: Animation
On 10 November 2017, CRC Press published the monograph Twice the First. The opening title of the new FOCUS series, Twice the First tells in detail the story of Argentinean animator Quirino Cristiani (1896-1984), director of the first animated feature film in the world (El Apostol - The Apostle - 1917) and of the first animated sound feature film in the world (Peludopolis - id. - 1931). Before Giannalberto Bendazzi's discovery, the primacy was attributed to Lotte Reiniger (Germany) with her Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed, 1926).