Antonioni Season
30 June – 15 July 2026
Depot screens four iconic films from the Italian master filmmaker
About the season
Born in Ferrara, Italy in 1912, the Italian director Michaelangelo Antonioni trained with Roberto Rosselini in the neo-realism style of post-war Italian cinema but broke away from themes around working class life to focus on the bourgeoisie, experimenting with non-linear narratives about fame, politics, sex and dysfunctional relationships. His famous Italian trilogy L’Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961) and L’Eclisse (1962) were foundational in the development of European arthouse cinema, containing striking visual compositions and complex elliptical narratives.
Depot will commence this season with a screening of his iconic arthouse masterpiece, L’Avventura (1960) starring Monica Vitti, who appeared in all of Antonioni’s major Italian films. The film will be preceded by a short talk on the films on Antonioni by Depot Chair of Trustees, Robert Senior.
After the success of Il Deserto Rosso in 1964 Antonioni signed a film deal with Carlo Ponti to make three English-language movies. The first was Blow-up (1966) with David Hemmings as a “swinging sixties” London photographer possibly observing a murder with Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Birkin in early roles. Antonio accompanied the film with a striking jazz score and the film’s sexual content challenged the Hollywood production code.
Antonioni went even further with his first American film, Zabriskie Point (1970), which contained a controversial orgy scene. In fact the movie is an underrated masterpiece about youth counterculture and resistance set largely in Death Valley and features a famous explosion scene beautifully crafted to a Pink Floyd score.
The final film in the trilogy is The Passenger (1975) an atmospheric mystery set in Chad about a disillusioned journalist (Jack Nicholson on top form) exploring identity and purpose.