ITAL IAN RHAPSODY
Rustam Hamdamov Painer. Academician. Film director.
That summer, as a big group, we travelled to a little Italian town Pennabilli to the international film school run by Tonino Guerra, a well-known Italian film director, poet, dramaturg, co-author of Federico Fellini’s films. During that trip for the first time I met Toma Stenko, a beautiful young girl with a gentle smile. She attracted everyone’s attention, with her extraordinary nature. In one of the master classes Toma sat on the side of a large leather couch while drawing something; she was not fully listening to the Japanese cartoonist Kaneto Natsumi. The hall was filled with young film directors from all across the world; I sat next to Toma, gazed at what she was drawing, and got surprised: A tree with lemons growing from its branches. Next to it a strange animal kissing or smelling a girl who appeared to be either asleep or passed out on the grass. Most probably kissing. The girl’s eyes are half open, you can see a sign of a smile. I asked her, “Beauty and the beast?” She answered, “It’s Picasso. He peeked at how in my childhood I run from the bull”. Toma smiled and continued, “Picasso peeked at the scene, so I drew from his album”. For two straight weeks Toma drew everything around her — deer that runout of the forest into the road and freeze in front of our bus. Fountains in the city where Rafael Santi was born. An oak tree in the garden of Michelangelo’s house.
Toma would show her works in either a shy manner or playfully confident one to Paola Volkova, Georgiy Daneliya, Tonino Guerra and to me. We politely complimented her. I don’t know about others but I felt like behind her calm paintings she was hiding something rebellious, some kind of mystery, some kind of passion. I’d say, ‘mad passion’ which she hides in her academic drawings of pencil, ink, pastel. “Who taught you?” I asked her. “Botticelli, Picasso and school art teacher from Sochi, Alexandr Efimovich Voskresensky,” she answered. I laughed, “I know two out of the three, tell me about Voskresensky.” We continued our conversation after our visit to Tonino Guerra, restaurant owner Lorenzo Bellokkio, who owned a place called Blou Ap, in honour of the movie by the script writer Tonino Guerra. “So who is Voskresensky?” I asked. Bellokkio rosé wine was helping me to listen and the same wine was helping Toma to speak. “Voskresensky taught me to draw in such a way that through art, the soul would show.” I grunted, thinking that this was a rather mannered statement. In the depth of the cliff one could hear a strong river current passing. Guests of the summer film school were getting seated on the bus. “Voskresensky, taught me to be generous, he also taught me that God is everywhere, he is in Michelangelo’s oak tree, and in an acorn... When I
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