good neighbours : regional programme 2007
 Letters from the Sahara (Lettere dal Sahara), Vittorio De Seta, ITALIJA, 2006, 125'Assane, a young Senegalese Muslim, interrupts his studies and emigrates to Italy following the death of his father. Shipwrecked on Lampedusa, he is transferred to Sicily. He manages to escape and reach Villa Literno, near Naples, where his cousin Makhtar has guaranteed him work. But the job is unstable, the environment dangerous. |
 Bandits of Orgosolo (Banditi a Orgosolo), Vittorio De Seta, ITALIJA, 1961, 98'Michelle is a Sardinian shepherd who is wrongly accused of stealing another's sheep and of killing a carabinière. In a town where the authorities are not trusted, he does not believe that he can explain his innocence. Nor can he wait for trial without his sheep being confiscated. Scared of losing his livelihood, he escapes over the mountains with his sheep and help from his brother. However, when his sheep die of exhaustion, he is compelled to return home. On seeing the destitution he has imposed on his family, he resorts to the very crime he was accused of, he steals a flock of sheep at gunpoint... |
 Ten Shorts (1: Isole di fuoco, Surfarara, Pasqua in Sicilia, Contadini del mare, Parabola d'oro; 2: Lu tempu de li pisci spata, Pescherecci, Pastori di Orgosolo, Un giorno in Barbagia, I dimenticati), Vittorio De Seta, ITALIJA»What kind of alchemy was this? Here was cinema in its essence – where the filmmaker is not just recording reality but living it. De Seta’s humble empathy that I had experienced in watching Banditi a Orgosolo forty years ago, I recognized in these documentaries. I felt that I had witnessed not just the world of my ancestors appear in front of my eyes but also a cinema that no longer existed. A cinema with the power of religious evocations.« - Martin Scorsese |
 BELLAVISTA, Peter Schreiner, AVSTRIJA, 2006, 117'Sappada is a linguistic enclave of the Plodar dialect, which is spoken in the Carnian Alps in northern Italy. Bellavista centres around Giuliana who returned home to her parents' Bellavista hotel in Sappada after having stayed abroad, studied German, after two serious accidents and her brother’s suicide. Searching for creative space as redemption, she reflects upon the inner conflict in her life, feeling that the dialect can be seen as a “home”. Bellavista is far away from being an ethnographic study, as Schreiner links Giuliana’s perception with her extraordinary environment. |
