- published: 26 Jan 2011
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Primo Michele Levi (pronounced [ˈpriːmo ˈlɛːvi]; July 31, 1919 – April 11, 1987) was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems. His best-known works include If This Is a Man (1947), his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland; and The Periodic Table (1975) which the Royal Institution of Great Britain named the best science book ever written.
Levi was born in Turin at Corso Re Umberto 75 into a liberal Jewish family. His father Cesare worked for the manufacturing firm Ganz and spent much of his time working abroad in Hungary, where Ganz was based. Cesare was an avid reader and autodidact. Levi’s mother Ester, known to everyone as Rina, was well educated, having attended the Istituto Maria Letizia. She too was an avid reader, played the piano and spoke fluent French. The marriage between Rina and Cesare was arranged by Rina’s father. On their wedding day, Rina’s father, Cesare Luzzati, gave Rina the apartment at Corso Re Umberto where Primo Levi was to live for almost his entire life.
Actors: Giacomo Bosio (actor), Giacomo Bosio (actor), Giacomo Bosio (actor), Umberto Ramello (editor), Giovanna Ferraiuolo (actress), Giovanna Ferraiuolo (producer), Umberto Ramello (director), Sergio Andreotti (producer), Lino Autigna (actor), Mario De Fanis (writer), Guido Cardi (actor), Francesco Gaetani Liseo (actor), Franco Nervo (composer),
Plot: The experience of visiting the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau told by a very different range of people: young students, politicians, middle-aged and old people; and even by who really had been deported in those "death camps" and survived to tell everybody about that terrible tragedy. All interviews are mixed up with archive footages.
Keywords: concentration-camp, violation-of-rights, violence, witnessesActors: Richard Wilson (miscellaneous crew), Matt Curtis (miscellaneous crew), Antony Sher (actor), Richard Fell (producer), Humphrey Dixon (editor), Sarah Hayward (miscellaneous crew), Frank Doelger (producer), Craig Barwick (miscellaneous crew), Tracey Scoffield (producer), Sarah Wheale (miscellaneous crew), Justin Wolfe (miscellaneous crew), Scott Eaton (miscellaneous crew), Ann Wingate (producer), Jonathan Goldstein (composer), Richard Wilson (director),
Genres: Drama,Actors: Matt Curtis (miscellaneous crew), Richard Wilson (miscellaneous crew), Antony Sher (actor), Antony Sher (writer), Robin Lough (director), Primo Levi (writer), Jonathan Goldstein (composer), Robert Marshall (producer), Pádraig Cusack (producer), Thomas Vowles (miscellaneous crew), Robin Thompson Clark (miscellaneous crew), Ernest Hall (miscellaneous crew),
Plot: Known for his haunting work on the holocaust, Italian chemist and author Primo Levi had his book IF THIS IS A MAN brought to the stage in September 2004. In 1944, Levi was imprisoned in Auschwitz by German authorities who discovered he was Jewish. He spent 10 months incarcerated in barbaric conditions, then wrote of his horrifying experiences in IF THIS IS A MAN. The play was a one-man production from actor Antony Sher, whose notable performances include turns in the comedic SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE and John Schlesinger's meditation on wartime romance, YANKS. This filmed version of the play sees Sher acting out some harrowing material as he brings Levi's words to life, and proves that he is an actor capable of plummeting to the depths of human despair with alarming ease.
Genres: Drama,Actors: Tonino Guerra (writer), Sandro Petraglia (writer), Rade Serbedzija (actor), John Turturro (actor), Claudio Bisio (actor), Massimo Ghini (actor), Véra Belmont (producer), Teco Celio (actor), Lorenza Indovina (actress), Franco Trevisi (actor), Andy Luotto (actor), Roberto Citran (actor), Stefano Dionisi (actor), Stefano Rulli (writer), Francesco Rosi (writer),
Plot: This is the true story of Italian Jews returning home from Auschwitz after the war. It deals with their experiences in readjusting to life and their fears about what they will find at home.
Keywords: atheist, auschwitz, autobiographical, based-on-autobiography, based-on-novel, bell, bosphorus, boy-nudity, bread, brothelThe damage I've wrought,
the death that I've bought,
the pain I support,
all makes a sordid
mirth of my good intentions.
For every "yes"
a thousand "no's"
and for every dam
that I tried to built
there is a promise of flooding
and a memory of the ocean.
Once I thought it for the best
to never, ever give up and I still
think it for the best to never, ever give up.
Hopelessly so,
for every good reason
just sounds like a bad excuse.
Oh, I've grown weary of saying no,
but my friends it's all I've had.
Only nails in flesh, nails in wood,
a crown made of barbed wire.
Still at he end of the day
all that remains is bitter shame
of having survived by compromise as others die.
Bitter shame.
Once I thought it for the best
to never, ever give up and I still
think it for the best
to never, ever give up.
I hope I die before the day
when I have to give up, give up, give. give up.
If you choose the burden,
is it still a burden,
even if it takes your life?
The fool and the martyr
are bred of the same soil.