Oltre il Confine: The Father-Son Dialogue of Mimmo and Francesco Jodice

Every home, even the most transient, often holds a hidden box filled with relics of the past. Opening it – a rare occurrence – shifts one's perspective, making time feel thinner, unearthing memories long forgotten. It is around such a box that the story of Oltre il confine (Beyond the Border) unfolds. This documentary by Matteo Parisini initiates a dialogue between the photographic work of Mimmo and Francesco Jodice, weaving together their intertwined lives as father and son, renowned photographer and accomplished architect, artist and artist. They open the box, in this instance a binder labeled "Private Photos," scattering dozens of images of various sizes across a glass table in a seemingly random order. Some images rise to the surface, others recede, each carrying unique significance within this delicate, yet often sharp, layering of poignant impressions. Father and son pore over them; their eyes gleam with shared moments, experienced differently, recalled from alternative viewpoints. As their fingers turn the pages, a tactile memory is rekindled, and the conversation flows naturally.

Following its premiere last autumn at the Rome Film Festival, supported by the Teatro di Napoli-Teatro Nazionale, the documentary – written and directed by Parisini and produced by Ladoc and Jump Cut – was screened at the Mercadante theatre in Naples. The event was highly attended and deeply emotional, taking place five months after Mimmo Jodice's passing. Parisini stated, "I felt an urgent need to explore a theme rarely addressed with adequate depth: generational transition in art." He added, "Photography becomes a ground for confrontation between two extraordinary figures in Italian culture. What interested me was not only recounting their artistic experience but also the profound human relationship that underpins and traverses it."

The film captures Mimmo Jodice's hands engaging with the visual medium, manipulating an image as it slowly emerges from the development fluid. He tears the paper to create that "white vertigo," a pivotal moment both in his personal journey – shifting from social reportage, where he began, to crafting images that suspend and transfigure reality – and in elevating the artistic status of photographic language. In contrast, almost as a counterpoint, we see Francesco Jodice’s large-format printers, graphic processing software, and numerical codes that translate and reinterpret the visible. His work produces images that retain a connection to reality but challenge its stability, often revealing a more ambiguous, at times unsettling, dimension.

It is within this technical, generational, and epistemological distance that the film finds its core. This transmission of knowledge creates a field of tension where two distinct worldviews approach and overlap without negating each other. On one side is Mimmo’s perspective, deeply rooted in Naples and the world's peripheries, gradually evolving towards a metaphysical dimension of the image. On the other is Francesco's, navigating geopolitics, urban transformations, and global cultures, questioning landscapes on an extended scale.

Parisini allows this dialogue to unfold organically, avoiding explicit narration or interference, focusing solely on the two voices. Yet, the emotional dimension remains subtly contained, almost peripheral: it surfaces in the silences, pauses, and the inflections of certain words. Seated around a table, father and son navigate their images as one might traverse a long stretch of time, marked by divergences, returns, and overlaps. Their biographies and the recollection of small daily episodes prompt a reflection on how photography, over 60 years of relentless activity, has progressively redefined its relationship with reality.

The film thus constructs a dual portrait that extends from the private to the collective. Personal images and public works intertwine within a single archive, suggesting that every artistic practice is also a profound form of individual positioning in the world. Oltre il confine (Beyond the Border) reveals a more subtle threshold, concerning the transformative relationship between life and image, between experience and representation. It is there that the film situates itself, allowing the proximity of two distinct practices – united by the same mysterious imperative – to emerge.