the first European festival on creativity

2016 Programme

Event #36

Valentina Carnelutti, Matteo Nucci

The space of dreams: Penelope e Achilles

Hypnos, Sleep, and Thanatos, Death, are siblings. Could what we see during sleep put the space of life into contact with the space of death? This is what the «wise» Penelope and Achilles «light foot» seem to wonder, upon awakening from two notorious slumbers. The former when, certain by then of Odysseus’ death, she sees him as a younger version of himself, and feels him entering her bed and her bosom. The latter when, weary from pain for the loss of his friend, he falls asleep and sees him at his side, and speaks to him. What happens when we are visited by a dream? Does it derive from the land of dreams, the land adjoining to the land of the dead? The answer of the Homeric poets is entrusted to a woman, Penelope, and it forces us to come to grips with ourselves. Because the space of dreams is the space of our inner being. Where those who have left us endure forever. Readings 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 #36

Valentina Carnelutti, Matteo Nucci

The space of dreams: Penelope e Achilles

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