Segre, Daniele

(1952-)

   Screenwriter, producer, director. One of Italy's most socially committed and independent filmmakers, Segre began making documentaries in the mid-1970s, the first being Perche droga (Why Drugs? 1976). In the following years, having set up his own independent production company, I cammelli, he devoted himself to a cinema that blurred the line between fiction and reality in order to draw attention to a whole range of social problems and marginalities. After shorts such as Ritratto di un piccolo spacciatore (Portrait of a Small-Time Dealer, 1982), he directed his first full-length feature, Testadura (Hardhead, 1983), which was shown at the Venice Festival. He continued to explore social marginalization in works such as Vite di ballatoio (Balcony Lives, 1984), which high-lighted the precarious existence of transvestites and transsexuals on the streets of Turin, and in 1989 he established a school to train young people to use video for social purposes.

   After Partituraper volti e voci (Score for Faces and Voices, 1991), an intimate and layered portrait of workers and union delegates, he produced his second feature film, Manila Paloma Blanca (1992), the story of the difficult encounter between a young and wealthy Jewish woman and a mentally disturbed out-of-work actor. This was followed by Come prima, piu di prima, ti amerb (I'll Love You More Than Ever, 1995), a documentary on HIV-positive sufferers, and A proposito di sentimenti (A Propos Feelings, 1999), dealing with the affective life of Down syndrome sufferers. In 2002 his second feature, Vecchie (Old Women, 2000), was a provocative exploration of the theme of old age through the heated exchanges of two elderly women trapped in a seaside one-room apartment. His most recent film, Mitraglia e il Verme (Machinegun and the Worm, 2004), is a powerful exploration of human suffering and endurance, completely set in the lavatories of the vegetable market of a large city. Segre has also taught at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and since 2002 has been codirector of the Festival of Bellario, which seeks to showcase new socially conscious films by young directors.

   Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira