30. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
23 August - 1 September 2024

Leonzio, king of the bears, has lost his son Tonio, kidnapped by hunters. From the mountains of his kingdom, motionless on the rock, he observes the valley. When winter tightens its grip and his sleuth faces hunger, he will decide to set out to discover the world of men, down on the plains. Entrusted to the pencil of Lorenzo Mattotti, The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily is a respectful transposition of the celebrated novel by Dino Buzzati. The majesty of the backgrounds - with which the pastels of the Italian cartoonist are best expressed - are combined with the characters made in three-dimensional graphics, following the illustrations created by Buzzati himself for the book. The bear, so far removed from the usual fairytale figurations, is the protagonist divided between two dimensions, mountain and plain: two worlds that are at times dark, at times colourful, which Mattotti draws by balancing abstract and square shapes that interact in broad scenarios, with a metaphysical profile.

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  Lorenzo Mattotti

  Among the most distinguished Italian illustrators and cartoonists, Lorenzo Mattotti's works have been widely published internationally. His distinctive style is marked by continual research and aesthetic innovation, as in the famous covers created for The New Yorker. In addition to making posters for the most important film festivals, from Cannes to Venice, he has collaborated with Antonioni, Wong Kar Wai and Soderbergh in Eros (2004) and worked on the backdrops of the animated feature film Pinocchio (2012) by Enzo D’Alò. La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia, based on the novel by Dino Buzzati, is his directorial debut.