30. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
23 August - 1 September 2024

Italian premiere

Since Morteza sold all of his property in the city to buy an old castle on the edge of the Iranian desert, with thousands of hectares of pasture around it, his life purpose has been one: to return to cultivate that uncultivated land. Thus he puts back into operation an ancient qanat in ruins, the traditional irrigation system where water is collected from a spring in the mountains or from the depths of the ground and made to arrive, using the force of gravity, to the fields to be cultivated through underground canals. With the help of his family, little by little Morteza manages to get the aqueduct back into operation and to give water back to the desert, which is once again dotted with greenery. With surprising aerial images and accompanying Morteza in the routine of work and in his underground explorations in search of water, Farshad Fadaian documents an effort and fortitude that are a warning and lesson on how much water is a precious commodity for life, even in the apparently most inhospitable places and how human tenacity can transform the desert into a garden.

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  Farshad Fadaian

  An Iranian director of documentaries and photographer, he earned a degree in philosophy from the University of  Tabriz and made his first documentary, Stone, Silent Mother in 1988. To date, he has made more than 80 shorts and features.