Antonio Monda
Encyclopedia
Antonio Monda is an Italian
writer
, film director
, journalist
, and professor
at New York University
's Tisch School of the Arts
. He is a well-connected figure in and promoter of the arts, particularly film and literature.
into a family of liberal
Catholic
politicians, and currently remains a practicing Catholic
himself. His father, who died of a heart attack when Monda was 15, was mayor of Cisterna di Latina, a city south to Rome, and helped finance films, including some by the Taviani brothers, who employed the young Monda in 1981. His brother Andrea, is also a writer, and has published several books on Tolkien, C. S. Lewis
and Chesterton
. Monda's uncle, Riccardo Misasi, then Minister of Education, was investigated for ties to the Mafia
in 1993. The charges were dropped before the trial, but this caused the end of his political career. His reputation was restored when an avenue was dedicated to his honor in his hometown. What happened to his uncle, Monda has called "the greatest pain of my life, after my father’s death". This ultimately made him less fond of the Italian justice system and made it more difficult to pursue a career in Italy.
Monda earned a law degree at the University of Rome La Sapienza
. In 1994, he moved to New York City
where, in exchange for an apartment on the Upper East Side
, he worked as a superintendent
, and began writing for La Repubblica
as well as teaching at NYU. Susan Sontag
, whom he interviewed, wrote a letter of support to help him gain tenure. From 1999 on, he also worked for various Italian government cultural outlets.
In an interview with the New York Times, Monda stated “I was the worst super in the world".
winner of such prizes as the Carro d'Oro, Premio Cinema Giovane, Icaro d'Oro, and Premio Navicella.
, he became the US cultural correspondent for La Repubblica
. He writes a column in the Italian Vanity Fair titled "Central Park West".
, who cast Monda as himself in the film The Life Aquatic and included a parody—a DVD
extra called "Mondo Monda" in which Monda asks such questions of Anderson and his associate, co-screenwriter Noah Baumbach, to befuddled reactions. Monda often manages to use his interview connections for book topics, classroom speaker series, or social gatherings.
His interviews with, among others: Saul Bellow
, Jonathan Franzen
, Nathan Englander
, Toni Morrison
, and Elie Wiesel
appear in his book Do You Believe? Conversations on God and Religion.
, Manhattan
apartment, where Meryl Streep
, Al Pacino
, Don DeLillo
, Bernardo Bertolucci
, Derek Walcott
, Paul Auster
, Martin Scorsese
, Philip Roth
, Jonathan Lethem
and Arthur Miller
have mingled. Even more star-studded is his literary festival Le Conversazioni
, held on the island of Capri
. A promoter of Italian-American cultural relations, he is a champion of anglophone
writers in Italy and, according to the New York Times, a "one-man Italian cultural institute". The paper also referred to him as "the most well-connected cultural figure you've never heard of".
He is the co-host, with Mario Sesti, of Viaggio nel Cinema Americano (A Journey into American Cinema) a series of public interviews at the Rome Auditorium with major film personalities such as Tim Burton
, Spike Lee
, Joel and Ethan Coen, David Lynch
, Francis Ford Coppola
, Sean Connery
, Jane Fonda
, Susan Sarandon
and Sydney Pollack
. Terrence Malick
made his first and only public appearance here in October 2007.
He has curated shows for the Guggenheim Museum
, the Museum of Modern Art
, Lincoln Center, the American Museum of the Moving Image
, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
. He is on the Advisory Board of the Rome Film Festival.
He is also the co-founder of "Open Roads: New Italian Cinema" and Le Conversazioni
.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, and professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
's Tisch School of the Arts
Tisch School of the Arts
Tisch School of the Arts is one of the 15 schools that make up New York University ....
. He is a well-connected figure in and promoter of the arts, particularly film and literature.
Family and early life
Monda was born in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
into a family of liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
politicians, and currently remains a practicing Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
himself. His father, who died of a heart attack when Monda was 15, was mayor of Cisterna di Latina, a city south to Rome, and helped finance films, including some by the Taviani brothers, who employed the young Monda in 1981. His brother Andrea, is also a writer, and has published several books on Tolkien, C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
and Chesterton
Chesterton
-Places:United Kingdom*Chesterton, Cambridge**Chesterton railway station*Chesterton, Huntingdonshire*Chesterton Rural District*Chesterton *Chesterton, Oxfordshire*Chesterton, Staffordshire*Chesterton, Warwickshire...
. Monda's uncle, Riccardo Misasi, then Minister of Education, was investigated for ties to the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
in 1993. The charges were dropped before the trial, but this caused the end of his political career. His reputation was restored when an avenue was dedicated to his honor in his hometown. What happened to his uncle, Monda has called "the greatest pain of my life, after my father’s death". This ultimately made him less fond of the Italian justice system and made it more difficult to pursue a career in Italy.
Monda earned a law degree at the University of Rome La Sapienza
University of Rome La Sapienza
The Sapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza – Università di Roma, formerly known as Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy...
. In 1994, he moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
where, in exchange for an apartment on the Upper East Side
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...
, he worked as a superintendent
Building superintendent
A building superintendent or building supervisor is a manager responsible for repair and maintenance in a residential building. They are the first point of contact for residents of the building. They are expected to take care of minor issues and repairs, such as small leaks or blockages, the...
, and began writing for La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...
as well as teaching at NYU. Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
, whom he interviewed, wrote a letter of support to help him gain tenure. From 1999 on, he also worked for various Italian government cultural outlets.
In an interview with the New York Times, Monda stated “I was the worst super in the world".
Books
Antonio Monda started as an essayist and film critic. His first book on American cinema, La Magnifica Illusione (The Magnificent Illusion) won the Efebo d'Oro as the best film book of 2003. His book "Do You Believe?" was translated into several languagues. After his debut in fiction with the very well received "Assoluzione" which was originally published in Italy in 2008. In December 2010, Monda's latest work "Conversations with Ennio Morricone" will be released. He currently is preparing a new novel set in American in the 1950s.Film
Monda has directed documentaries, commercials, and a feature film, Dicembre, presented at the Venice Film FestivalVenice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
winner of such prizes as the Carro d'Oro, Premio Cinema Giovane, Icaro d'Oro, and Premio Navicella.
Criticism & Journalism
He was a film critic for both the New York Review of Books and La Rivista dei Libri. After eight years with the daily newspaper Il MattinoIl Mattino
Il Mattino is an Italian daily newspaper, founded in 1892 in Naples, Italy, by the journalists Eduardo Scarfoglio and Matilde Serao.Based on 2008 survey data from Accertamenti Diffusione Stampa, Il Mattino is the most read daily newspaper in Campania, and one of the most read in southern...
, he became the US cultural correspondent for La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...
. He writes a column in the Italian Vanity Fair titled "Central Park West".
Interviews
Monda's interviews for La Repubblica have gained a status all their own; he is known for asking deeply profound questions in a very direct manner, such as "Comment on Dostoyevsky’s assertion that 'If God doesn’t exist, everything is permitted'." This style caught the attention of director Wes AndersonWes Anderson
Wesley Wales Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer of features, short films and commercials....
, who cast Monda as himself in the film The Life Aquatic and included a parody—a DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
extra called "Mondo Monda" in which Monda asks such questions of Anderson and his associate, co-screenwriter Noah Baumbach, to befuddled reactions. Monda often manages to use his interview connections for book topics, classroom speaker series, or social gatherings.
His interviews with, among others: Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
, Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His third novel, The Corrections , a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...
, Nathan Englander
Nathan Englander
Nathan Englander is a Jewish-American author born in Long Island, NY in 1970. He wrote the short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1999...
, Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...
, and Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
appear in his book Do You Believe? Conversations on God and Religion.
Salons and festivals
Monda is also famous for his writers' and artists' salons in his Upper West SideUpper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
, Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
apartment, where Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
, Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
, Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
, Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
, Derek Walcott
Derek Walcott
Derek Alton Walcott, OBE OCC is a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2011 for White Egrets. His works include the Homeric epic Omeros...
, Paul Auster
Paul Auster
Paul Benjamin Auster is an American author known for works blending absurdism, existentialism, crime fiction and the search for identity and personal meaning in works such as The New York Trilogy , Moon Palace , The Music of Chance , The Book of Illusions and The Brooklyn Follies...
, Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, Philip Roth
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
, Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...
and Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
have mingled. Even more star-studded is his literary festival Le Conversazioni
Le Conversazioni
Le Conversazioni is an anglophone literary festival organized by Italian film personalities Antonio Monda and Davide Azzolini, and financed by the Italian government and various corporations. It is held on the island of Capri. The festival was first held in 2006...
, held on the island of Capri
Capri
Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...
. A promoter of Italian-American cultural relations, he is a champion of anglophone
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
writers in Italy and, according to the New York Times, a "one-man Italian cultural institute". The paper also referred to him as "the most well-connected cultural figure you've never heard of".
He is the co-host, with Mario Sesti, of Viaggio nel Cinema Americano (A Journey into American Cinema) a series of public interviews at the Rome Auditorium with major film personalities such as Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
, Spike Lee
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
, Joel and Ethan Coen, David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
, Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
, Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
, Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
, Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...
and Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...
. Terrence Malick
Terrence Malick
Terrence Frederick Malick is a U.S. film director, screenwriter, and producer. In a career spanning almost four decades, Malick has directed five feature films....
made his first and only public appearance here in October 2007.
He has curated shows for the Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
, the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, Lincoln Center, the American Museum of the Moving Image
American Museum of the Moving Image
The Museum of the Moving Image is a media museum located in Astoria, Queens on the former site of the Kaufman Astoria Studios. The museum originally opened in 1988 as the American Museum of the Moving Image. The museum began a $67 million expansion in March 2008 and reopened in January 2011...
, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
. He is on the Advisory Board of the Rome Film Festival.
He is also the co-founder of "Open Roads: New Italian Cinema" and Le Conversazioni
Le Conversazioni
Le Conversazioni is an anglophone literary festival organized by Italian film personalities Antonio Monda and Davide Azzolini, and financed by the Italian government and various corporations. It is held on the island of Capri. The festival was first held in 2006...
.
List of Books
- La Magnifica Illusione 2003 (published by Fazi Editore updated and extended in 2007)
- The Hidden God (published by MoMAMomaMoma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
) (2004) - Do you Believe? Conversations on God and Religion (2007) (published by VintageVintageVintage, in wine-making, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product . A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certain wines, it can denote quality, as in Port wine, where Port houses make and...
) - Assoluzione (published by MondadoriArnoldo Mondadori EditoreArnoldo Mondadori Editore is the biggest publishing company in Italy.-History:Founded by the 18-year-old Arnoldo Mondadori in 1907 to publish the magazine titled Luce!, it soon became an important publisher. Its headquarters are in Milan....
in 2008) - Hanno preferito le tenebre. Dodici storie del male, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 2010 ISBN 9788804564799