the first European festival on creativity

2016 Programme

Event #20

Matteo Nucci, Valentina Carnelutti

The space of absence: Patroclus and Andromache

With Patroclus and Andromache, the domain of the End breaks onto the scene of the Iliad. The sweetest of the Homeric heroes, Patroclus “the divine”, takes up the arms of his partner Achilles and moves forth towards his death. As he is slain by Hector, he manages to ensure his foe that he too shall soon perish at the hand of Achilles. Meanwhile, within the chambers of the fortress of Troy, “fair-armed” Andromache draws a bath for her beloved husband Hector, whom she shall never see again. Can death be conquered? In this Hector and Achilles are the same: only glory, “which future days may hear of”, can save us. Yet Patroclus chases no literary glory. Nor may Andromache derive from it any reparation. They do not delude themselves. In Hades we are but smoke. The wound of death is never healed. The space of death is the space of absence. Reading by Valentina Carnelutti.

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Valentina Carnelutti

actress and author, nominated this year for the Nastro d’Argento, has been directed by M. T. Giordana (La meglio gioventù), T. Angelopoulos (La polvere del tempo), P. Virzì (Tutta la vita davanti, La pazza gioia), C. Maselli (Le ombre rosse), A. Orlando (Sfiorarsi) and many others. She is the author of Sfiorarsi (A. Orlando) and of the film ReCuiem which she also directed. She also directed the documentary Melkam Zena in Ethiopia and the videoclip Le conseguenze dell’ingenuità.

Matteo Nucci was born in Rome in 1970. With Ponte alle Grazie Publishers he published the novels Sono comuni le cose degli amici (2009, shortlisted at Strega Award), Il toro non sbaglia mai (2011), È giusto obbedire alla notte (2017, shortlisted at Strega Award) and the narrative-essay L’abisso di Eros (2018). He curated the new edition of Plato’s Symposium (Einaudi, 2009) and the narrative-essays Le lacrime degli eroi (Einaudi, 2013), Achille e Odisseo. La ferocia e l’inganno (Einaudi, 2020), Il grido di Pan (Einaudi, 2023). With HarperCollins he published the novel Sono difficili le cose belle (2022). His short stories were published in magazines, anthologies and eBooks. He collaborates with Venerdì di Repubblica, Specchio by La Stampa and l’Espresso.

2016 Programme

Event #20

Matteo Nucci, Valentina Carnelutti

The space of absence: Patroclus and Andromache

An idea of public space

That place called “home”

The space of words: Helen and Odysseus

The last day of summer

The birth of space (and time)

The birth of space (and time)

The space of war. The First Italian War of Independence

Immunity and the brain: a dialogue between two chief systems. From memory to vaccines.

New males: as teenagers, in couples, as fathers

Tv series: a newly emerged continent

Across the American deserts: a voyage through 20th century collective imagination

What do algorithms think of?

That place is gone

The space of rebellion

Other maps, other worlds. Representations of space

The analyst at the movies: thinking by images

From the stars to Life: one, one hundred, one thousand Earths

Architectural space in the past, the present, the future

Families confined and without borders

The best ideas of our lives. Make room for innovation (the real kind)

The space of absence: Patroclus and Andromache

On the other side of the sea

Play it again

The space of war. The second Italian War of Independence

School is an idea of the world

Asperger Talk Show

Let’s make space for stupidity

Voyages through spaces real and imagined

Is there space for us all? The future of European migrations

When painters left their studios to paint en plein air

The memory of space. The rubble of climate and rubbish in our homes

Graffiti, tags and murals: when art extends to walls

The poetry of space. Words and drawings on that place we call home

The river is never wrong

Mirror neurons: anatomy of a revolutionary discovery

The boundaries of the soul and of the world