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

PASCOLO VAGANTE

NOMADIC GRAZING

Bruno Zanzottera / 36 min / 2024 / Italy

"Where there are sheep there is a home." Fabio and Alice are two young shepherds from the Veneto who, with their child, live in a caravan for most of the year, following their thousand sheep in transhumance between the Po Valley and the Belluno Dolomites. In addition to taking care of the shearing, feeding and vaccination of the sheep, they narrate transhumance with passion, making their profession a lifestyle.

NESSUN POSTO AL MONDO

NOWHERE IN THE WORLD

Vanina Lappa / 83 min / 2023 / Italy

On the Cervati massif, a destination for transhumances and processions, Antonio is a shepherd who speaks the language of his animals, the only ones with whom he seems to be able to truly communicate. His fellow villagers scold him: his dogs are without collars, but Antonio will never put collars on his dogs. Despite the worsening of conflicts, Antonio will not stop fighting to discover his place, finding in nature a promise of freedom.

UN PASTEUR

A SHEPHERD

Louis Hanquet / 71 min / 2024 / France

Félix is a young shepherd with a melancholy temperament who lives a life outside of time. From autumn to spring he works with his father to care for the family herd, while in summer he makes a long journey on foot to lead the animals to summer pastures in the French Pre-Alps of Ubaye. There, immersed in a rocky and inaccessible environment, he faces solitude and the presence of the wolf.

PICCOLA COSA

A LITTLE THING

Mila Costi / 3 min / 2023 / Italy

A wild orchid has grown in the middle of the woods, among its plant friends and the animals that wander around it. During an excursion in the woods, a family finds the orchid and decides to uproot it and take it home to embellish their terrace. Gentle and serene, the orchid's voice resembles that of a woman, and it ponders what it has given and what it leaves to the world, in its unfamiliar language.

THE CHILDREN BEHIND ZALAGA

Karim Ali / 65 min / 2023 / Italian premiere / European premiere / Egypt, Germany

In Sinai's Wadi Zalaga, young jockeys race camels to earn money for their families, forgoing school and putting their well-being at risk. Despite efforts by international organisations and governments to eliminate child labour in the camel racing industry, the practice continues in some parts of the world.

DON BENJAMÍN

Iván Zahinos / 29 min / 2024 / Spain

Born and raised in Bolivia, Don Benjamín has always lived in the Amazon forest, which for him is a source of life, food and health, like a divinity. Now, his world has been reduced to ashes due to the fires set by farmers to clear the land for their crops and Don Benjamin and his family will have to work to rebuild it.

THE WOLF OF CUSTER

Tanya J  Scott / 8 min / 2023 / Italian premiere / United Kingdom

A legendary wolf with fur as shiny as the moon terrorises the town of Custer, North Dakota, and enlivens the stories its inhabitants tell while gathered around the evening bonfire. A skilled hunter is skeptical and sets out to hunt the legendary wolf. Instead of killing it, however, he will recognise its value and beauty. Inspired by a true story.

Vittorino Mason
THE GUARDIANS OF THE MOUNTAIN

With I custodi della montagna (Ediciclo Editore, 2023) Vittorino Mason takes us on a journey through time along the Alps, to meet characters and stories that perhaps belong to past worlds from which we still have direct testimony. The protagonists are herdsmen, woodcutters, poachers from the Dolomites and ice cream makers from Zoldo, silent men and tenacious women, always accustomed to habits and traditions that have nearly disappeared, but which are part of our history. Ezio Bonomi converses with the author.

LA RAYA

POPPY CRASH

Andalusia K. Soloff / 27 min / 2023 / Italian premiere / Mexico

In the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, it is the red poppies that support the fragile local economy. Farmers sell the opium paste, but with the spread of Fentanyl (a synthetic opioid) prices plummet. Many indigenous farmers migrate to work, exploited, as labourers or join organised crime, while others struggle to survive by harvesting corn.

LA HOJARASCA

THE UNDERGROWTH

Macu Machín / 72 min / 2024 / Spain

Carmen, Else and Maura are three sisters from the Canary Islands who meet after twenty years to divide up their inheritance of land at the foot of a volcano. Immersed in an atmosphere of magical and meditative lyricism, they speak to each other delicately, until they have to face emotional tensions and forgotten memories that will destabilise the precarious balance of their emotions.

WHERE WE USED TO SLEEP

Matthäus Wörle / 82 min / 2024 / Italian premiere / Germany

Once upon a time, a thousand people lived in the village of Geamăna, in the Apuseni Mountains, Romania. Now only the spire of the church bell tower rises above the waters of an artificial reservoir, contaminated by the toxic mud of a copper mine. Almost all the inhabitants have fled. Only Valeria Praţa fights to defend her home and avoid being removed from her land and her roots. 

KHALIL

Seyed Payam Hosseini / 20 min / 2024 / European premiere / Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Khalil is a 13-year-old boy who lives in a village on the Iranian plateau. He has just lost his father and now fears for the fate of his soul. Determined to do everything possible, he will involve all the people around him hoping to influence divine judgment, until, with the help of his school teacher, he turns directly to God to beg for his mercy.