Andrea Ruggeri likes doing contrasting things.
In the 1970s he put together L’Urlo emiliano (‘The Scream in Emilia’), six photos of a witch and six abandoned children living with her. In 1977 he and Alberto Grifi did the Dodo Brothers, the first Italian guerrilla video. He then travelled for 5 years. In the ’80s he co-edited the journal Quindi with Bizzarri, Ghirri and Zanzani. Urlo emiliano was chosen as the image for Dal Fiume al Mare (‘From the river to the sea’), a book of narrative pieces by Gianni Celati. Next he wrote and Marsilio published Rinascimento Urbano (‘Urban Renaissance’), a book taken as an insult by Bologna’s PCI (Italian Communist Party) city planners. He then emigrated. In the’90s he was art director at Young & Rubicam in Milan, did 5 TV specials for Milena Gabanelli, wrote and Feltrinelli published Potemkin Cola and Che ne sarà del cosmo Yuri (‘What’s to become of the cosmos, Yuri’). Next he travelled for 2 years in Latin America. In the early 2000s he directed Algo Queda (‘Something remains’) in Nicaragua, a film about the children born on the day of the revolution that received special mention at the Toronto Film Festival. He then stopped making films, donated his archives to Bologna’s Cineteca Foundation, travelled for 4 years in the Libyan desert, published Il cecchino miope (‘The short-sighted sniper’) and co-founded the Jack Blutharsky Advertising Agency. In Bologna he’s begun a story entitled “La Rivoluzione è finita, abbiamo vinto” (‘The Revolution’s over, we’ve won’).
THANKS
Harun Alikadic, Jean Michel Bertrand, Eugenio Debegnak, Silvia Fanti, Zeus Ferrari, Alessandro Kostis, Gabriella Poggi, Gianluca Simoni and Piero Lo Sardo, Matteo Guerrino (for the main title)