Ultimately, we are born from the earth. Everything that exists in the world, sooner or later, returns to the earth. A flower, for example: one day it is born, and then it becomes earth again. Earth is the substance of life. By moulding plasticine, I joyfully bring earth to life.

Fusako Yusaki

Fusako Yusaki, one of the pioneers and leading lights in the art of stop-motion plasticine animation, was born in Japan but has lived in Italy for more than 50 years. An international competition brought her to the Accademia di Brera in 1964 and she then worked for Italian TV, making a famous series of adverts for Fernet Branca between 1971 and 1979. In 1972 she made her first short film, Pentalogia del mondo perduto, in which she dealt with such themes as nature, work, pollution and traffic; La ballata dell’omino stanco followed the next year. In 1983, she started producing her films entirely independently. She collaborated with numerous institutions to produce idents, educational shorts and several TV series, including Peo and its spin-offs, which were broadcast by Swiss public television between 1997 and 2012. Everything, always and exclusively, in plasticine.
Fusako Yusaki’s cinema has no need for the spoken word: sound, music and images combine in films lasting just a few minutes in which clumps of earth come to life and assume different forms, constantly mutating. The filmmaker follows the principle of treating earth like a living organism; just as life goes on, step-by-step and day-by-day, so Fusako Yusaki’s earth is transformed into a thousand different images, each linked to the one before and the one that follows by the unending cycle of life. This retrospective is divided into three separate programmes, which take account of the variety and evolution of Fusako Yusaki’s artistic practice.

• Fernet Branca: maledetti rumori (Italy/1971) R.: Rodolfo Marcenaro, Fusako Yusaki, Massimiliano Squillace. D.: 2’
• Ballata dell’omino stanco (Italy/1973) R.: Ro Marcenaro. D.: 8’
• Naccio e Pomm (episodes selection) (Giappone/2003-2007) R.: Fusako Yusaki. D.: 5’
• L’albero azzurro – sigla (Italy/2001) R.: Fusako Yusaki. D.: 1’
• Oto e la musica (episodes selection) (Giappone/2013) R.: Fusako Yusaki. D.: 6’
• L’ocona sgangherona (Italy/1990) R.: Fusako Yusaki. D.: 3’
• Il cane capellone (Italy/2004) R.: Fusako Yusaki. D.: 2’ Meraviglioso è (Italia/2018) R.: Fusako Yusaki. D.: 4’