Giorgio Mangiamele
| Giorgio Mangiamele | |
|---|---|
| Born |
13 August 1926 Catania, Sicily |
| Died | 13 May 2001 |
| Occupation | Film director, screenwriter, cinematographer, actor and photographer |
| Years active | 1953–2001 |
Giorgio Mangiamele (13 August 1926 – 13 May 2001) was an Italian/Australian photographer and filmmaker who made a unique contribution to the production of Australian art cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. His films included Il Contratto (or The Contract) (1953), The Spag (1962), Ninety Nine Per Cent (1963) and Clay (1965). Clay was selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1965.
In 2011 the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia restored four of his most notable films and Ronin Films released them on DVD. Three of the films also screened at the 2011 Melbourne International Film Festival.
Mangiamele, born in Catania, Sicily on 13 August 1926, was the son of a toymaker. He enjoyed drawing and painting as a child but bought his first still camera after he decided that 'painting was too slow' and that cameras were able to catch 'that fraction of a second'. After leaving school he studied fine arts in Catania and joined the State Police in Rome. As a police stills photographer for the Polizia Scientifica (Police Forensics), he captured images of crime scenes including fingerprints. He also learned the essentials of filmmaking by shooting 16mm surveillance footage of demonstrations and riots intended for screening to magistrates in court. During his fifth year with the police, Mangiamele studied journalism at Rome University, 'learning to see the essentials, to use the minimum of words', a principle he was to apply to his Australian filmmaking.
In 1952 Mangiamele boarded the Castel Felice to migrate to Australia.
Influenced by Bicycle Thieves (1948), Mangiamele directed and appeared in his first feature film, Il Contratto, on a £500 budget. The story tells of the challenges faced by four Italian migrants after their arrival to Australia, and was based on the stories that Mangiamele had heard from the Melbourne Italian community around him. The film was shot without sound on 16mm stock with the intention of adding an Italian-language soundtrack later. But Il Contratto was never completed and the version that survives is a mute rough cut.
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