Friday 26 June 2009, 18.30
Sunday 28 June 2009, 15.00
Sunday 12 July 2009, 15.00
Sunday 19 July 2009, 15.00
Sunday 26 July 2009, 15.00
Sunday 2 August 2009, 15.00
Sunday 9 August 2009, 15.00

One hundred yeas ago, in 1909, the Italian poet and entrepreneur Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published the Founding Manifesto of Futurism. It inaugurated the first truly international art debate which energised Europe's artistic youth. Its message was a call to daring modernity: artists should shed once and for all the burden of tradition and academia.

Futurist artists like Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Carlo Carra and Gino Severini, inspired by contemporary urban life, adopted the aesthetics of industry and engineering, speed, dynamism and electrification. The Futurists believed that innovation and progress could only be promoted through provocation and violent intervention. This was expressed in the language of their Manifestos, at times visionary, theoretical, ironical even absurd, which affected a wide range of Futurist experimentation in poetry, performance and art.

Together with many European artists and intellectuals they welcomed the first World War as the source of radical change and revolution. Leading Futurists of the first generation like Boccioni and Antonio Sant' Elia died in that war.

During the 1920s and 30s Marinetti, in an effort to re-establish Futurism, led a new generation of artists to develop concepts and projects of continuing significance. Their search for a totally new beginning was exemplified in the 1915 Manifesto 'The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe' signed by Balla and Fortunato Depero, a leading Futurist of the second generation. Fascism eventually usurped the modernising energy of the Futurists, which affected the historical legacy and reputation of the movement. Futurism ended with the death of Marinetti in 1944. Only now, with the distance of time, can Futurism be fully appreciated as one of the most important sources of essential concepts of modern art.

'Vita Futurista' was shot in Venice and Rome in 1987 and 2009. It includes dramatic re-creations, key works of art, rare archival film and statements of art historians and descedents of the founders of Futurism. (DVD 52 mins, colour and b+w)

Directed by Lutz Becker

The Première screening on Friday 26 June will be introduced by Lutz Becker.

Tate Modern  Starr Auditorium
Free
Seated on a first-come, first-served basis

This event is related to the Futurism exhibition