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The expression “don’t lie or your nose will grow” became a common saying after Walt Disney released the film “Pinocchio” in 1940. Pinocchio was a popular series written by Carlo Collodi that first appeared on July 7, 1881, in the Italian Giornale dei Bambini (Children’s Magazine). The story was titled “Le avventure di Pinocchio: storia di un buratt...

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The town of Collodi, Italy, about 45 miles west of Florence, is set on a slope behind a fabulous 17th-century villa. The garden, built as a kind of fantasy pleasure park for the Garzoni family and their noble guests, offers terraces, flower beds, grand staircases, splashing fountains and antique marble statues surrounding the Baroque villa. Walk th...

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In Friuli Venezia Giulia, in Villesse, in the province of Gorizia, there is the Tiare Shopping centre, a huge two-storey structure with more than a hundred shops that houses Italy's first permanent immersive museum, EmotionHall Arena, which opened on 3 February 2021. This type of museum is so special because immersive art is able to transport visit...

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Pinocchio, the novel by Carlo Collodi starring a wooden puppet, has enchanted entire generations of children and inspired the audiovisual world for years, which has transferred this captivating story into several successful films. First and foremost, the unforgettable Walt Disney classic. As far as Italy is concerned, Collodi's tale has come to lif...

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Street art is an art form that knows no boundaries. Today, murals can burst into the historic centres of large cities or colour the grey of small abandoned villages. They have become a widespread expression used to cover dull walls and bring places back to life, giving visitors the feeling of being part of fantastic stories. There are many places i...

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Disney distorted the personality of the central character, replaced the message at the heart of the fable, and changed the setting…but Pinocchio is a story with many, many, levels of cultural, social, political, culinary and religious (particularly the “prodigal son” and resurrection) significance. It’s a text far more complex than generally realiz...

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Matteo Garrone said he was savouring the "historic" success of his 2019 adaptation of Pinocchio after it won two Oscar nominations - for Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. The director refused to be drawn into the debate about why the film, which stars Roberto Benigni as Gepetto, had not been been chosen to be Italy's candidate fo...

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In the outskirts of Capannori, a quaint village in the Tuscan countryside not far from Lucca, in the beautiful park surrounding Villa Carrara, there is a 600 years old oak, so famous and so distinctive that it is officially recognized as a national landmark by the Italian Government and it even appears as a reference on NATO maps.  This ancient, ma...

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With a new “Pinocchio,” Roberto Benigni is again making history. He was the first non-English speaking male actor to win an Oscar for his Italian masterpiece “Life Is Beautiful” (‘97), which also won Benigni a second Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. Back in 2002 Benigni directed and played the wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy in...

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Pinocchio has been a favorite Disney character, and there’s no turning away from this! The 1940 animated musical fantasy movie Pinocchio had awakened the music artist in us, one or the other day. We all have spent crying watching him getting lost and a lot of things we relate to. Our parents might have had teased you with the length of the nose if...

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