Lorenza Mazzetti

Lorenza Mazzetti (26 July 1927 – 4 January 2020) was an Italian film director, novelist, photographer and painter. She was connected to Albert Einstein through her aunt's marriage to Einstein's cousin, and survived a massacre of her family by German soldiers in August, 1944.

Early life Mazzetti was born in Florence. Her mother, Olga Liberati, died shortly after giving birth to Lorenza and her twin sister Paola. Her father, Corrado Mazzetti, gave custody of his children to a nurse in the village Anticoli Corrado, where they spent the first three years of their lives. When Corrado Mazzetti realised that the nurse was taking advantage of his absence and leaving the children alone while he was out at work, his friend Ugo Giannattasio, a futurist painter, offered to temporarily take care of them.

Mazzetti and her sister eventually moved in with their paternal aunt, Cesarina (Nina) Mazzetti, on a farm in Rignano sull’Arno, where she lived with her husband Robert Einstein (cousin of Albert) and their two daughters Anna Maria and Luce. Here Lorenza and Paola became part of the family and lived happy and untroubled.

During the Second World War, the farm was occupied by a department of the Wehrmacht. With the advancement of Anglo-American forces, after the last motor truck had just left, three German officers stepped into the villa and asked for Robert. Nina answered that he was not at home. The officers announced that they would return shortly. Assuming that the only person in danger would be her husband, Nina begged him to hide in the woods. However, when the officers returned on 3 August 1944 and did not find Robert, they assassinated his family. This incident is known as the Strage di Rignano. Lorenza and Paola were able to escape the massacre because their surname wasn't Einstein. The topic of the film deals with the story of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and is interpreted by the painter Michael Andrews. The film is considered to have anticipated the future Free Cinema, which in 1956 would be written down and signed by Mazzetti, Lindsay Anderson, Tony Richardson and Karel Reisz.

K is a strongly biographically stamped story dealing with the theme of alienation. The soundtrack was produced by Daniele Paris, who also worked with Mazzetti and Anderson in their later projects. To develop the film reels and obtain a copy of her film, Lorenza was prepared to make a false statement and risk prison time. Fortunately, she was saved by Coldstream, who was convinced by her talent and organised a showing of the film at the Slade School. He invited Denis Forman, the director of the British Film Institute. At the end of the performance, Forman asked Mazzetti: ‘Would you like to make a film without running the risk of going to prison?’ He invited her to partake in a new film project, which was to be financed by the BFI Experimental Film Fund.

In popular culture

Mazzetti appears as a minor but significant character in the 2020 novel Summer by Ali Smith; her life story, as well as references to her early films, are included. The 2020 British film Adrift in Soho, directed by Pablo Behrens, includes a character, named Jo, who was inspired by Mazzetti.

Filmography K (1954), starring Michael Andrews Together (1956), starring Michael Andrews, Eduardo Paolozzi I cattivi vanno in Paradiso (1959) Latin Lovers (1961) Mysteries of Rome (1966)

Books Il cielo cade (1962). The Sky Falls, trans. Marguerite Waldman (1962); The Sky is Falling, trans. Livia Franchini (2022) Con rabbia (1963). Rage, trans. Isabel Quigly (Bodley Head, 1965) Uccidi il padre e la madre (1969) Il lato oscuro, Tindalo (1969) Il teatro dell'io: l'onirodramma. I bambini drammatizzano a scuola i loro sogni (1975) Diario londinese (2014). London Diaries, trans. Melinda Mele (Zidane Press, 2018)