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

THE PATH TO THE SANCTUARIES OF LESSINIA

A journey along an ancient path of popular devotion of the Lessinia Mountains accompanied by the Lessinia Hiking Group. The destination? The suggestive Pieve di San Moro, a place of peace and prayer in the second half of the fourteenth century, when the Cimbri settled in the Veronese mountains. The parish church became an important pilgrimage destination dedicated to Saint Leonard of Limoges. Participants will be provided with the Cammino dei Sanctuaries credential. Meeting point: Piazza of San Rocco di Piegara. Length: 12 km - Difference in altitude: 360 metres. Duration: 5 hours. Difficulty: medium.

THE PATH OF WATER

Children, teenagers and adults are invited to walk the streets of Bosco Chiesanuova and its districts to discover the ancient methods with which the mountain people conserved and guarded the most precious asset for life: water. At the end of the excursion, participants will receive a free water bottle offered by the Consorzio Acque Veronesi to learn not to consume plastic to conserve water.

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.

IL CONTRABBANDO NON È PECCATO

SMUGGLING IS NOT A SIN

Nicola Buffoni / 84 min / 2023 / Italy

The documentary is a harmonious work that tells the story of smuggling from 1700 to the early 1970s between Ossola and Valais. Through interviews with historians, financiers, Swiss and Italian border guards, and the last "Ossola mules," it offers a solid historical narrative and also an opportunity for a journey through the high valleys of that land.

THE FATHERS OF THE FESTIVAL. 100 YEARS FROM THE BIRTH OF PIERO PIAZZOLA AND MARIO PIGOZZI

An encounter to honour three anniversaries: fifty years since the founding of the Curatorium Cimbricum Veronense, thirty years of the Film Festival della Lessinia, and one hundred years since the birth of our founders, Piero Piazzola (author, researcher, and longtime president of the association) and Mario Pigozzi (videomaker and author). Here to remember them are Vito Massalongo, Guido Pigozzi, Adriana and Tiziana Piazzola, Ezio Bonomi and Aldo Ridolfi. The meeting includes the music and songs of Marta Merzari, Lorella Baldin and Emanuele Zanfretta.

AN ENCOUNTER WITH GIORGIO DIRITTI

Giorgio Diritti, guest of honor of the thirtieth edition, meets the audience of the Film Festival della Lessinia to retrace his origins and the link between his cinematography and the mountains. The director will talk to Alessandro Anderloni and the audience in the theater about the three films in the homage that the Festival is dedicating to him: Il vento fa il suo giro (2005), L’uomo che verrà (2009) and Lubo (2023). Giorgio Diritti will receive the “Premio Protagonisti del Tempo” for 2024.

APERITIF WITH THE DIRECTORS

Learn about the day’s film programme and meet the filmmakers present at the festival. At the end of the meeting there will be a tasting of products from small producers, with non- alcoholic cocktails and wines from Lessinia wineries. Organized by GAS (Gruppo Acquisto Sociale) Lessinia.

WALK, WALK... FAIRY TALES TO GET FAR AWAY

How many curious or frightening or funny encounters fairy-tale characters have in the woods! In the shelter of a clearing of fir and beech trees, children and their families will be able to follow the narration of five ancient fairy tales told by Elisabetta Orlandi, a storyteller from Verona, who will accompany them through imaginary paths and territories inhabited by fantastic creatures and lead them to discover an unusual place: a deep and dark, yet magical, cave: the ancient giassara of Cerro Veronese.

LE MONDE MYSTERIEUX DES HAUTS PLATEAUX

TEPUI - INTO THE HOUSE OF GODS

Lars Abromeit, Jochen Schmoll / 52 min / 2023 / Italian premiere / Germany, Venezuela

Venezuela is home to the Tepui, sacred plateaus in indigenous culture, some of which have never been explored by man. In the Canaima National Park, an international scientific team sets out on a mission to the Tepui of Auyán, over 2,400 meters high, where the geologist Francesco Sauro and his companions discovered a vast system of caves in the depths of this harsh and mysterious environment.

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.

Enrico Camanni
THE SACRED MOUNTAIN

For human societies, mountains have always represented something distant, mysterious, even sacred. Our modern society, however, seems to have lost the sense of the limits that for millennia have preserved the environments and ecosystems of the high lands intact, instead increasingly considering the mountains only as places of entertainment and exploitation. Sixty years after Vajont, in the vicinity of the controversial Cortina Olympics, Enrico Camanni with La montagna sacra (Laterza, 2024) brings us reflections and considerations that are more current and necessary than ever. Nadia Massella converses with the author.

L'UOMO CHE VERRÀ

THE MAN WHO WILL COME

Giorgio Diritti / 115 min / 2009 / Italy

During the Second World War, a little girl named Martina lives in a village in the Apennines. Her community is shocked by the Nazi occupation and the Marzabotto massacre. Through Martina's eyes, the film recounts peasant life and the tragic impact of war on civilians, offering a moving representation of historical events and human resilience.

DRAWING A MEADOW

On the occasion of the exhibition Dove c’era un prato (Where there was a meadow) with illustrations by Jörg Müller, Nicolò Francesco Bello, of the publishing house Lazy Dog Press and Giulia Mirandola, founder of the “Montagna Disegnata” project, expert in visual education, children’s literature and cultural planning, discuss the relationship between anthropic activity and landscape and the effects that disruptive technological progress has on the latter. The meeting is part of a project of observation and reflection on the landscape that will continue in 2025.

BABAMIN EVİ

MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE

Leylakhanim Ganbarli / 25 min / 2024 / European premiere / Azerbaijan

Eleven years after her grandfather's death, Azerbaijani director Leylakhanim Ganbarli finally faces the pain of her loss. She heads from Baku to her remote childhood village, Oglangala, bringing with her precious memories. Reflecting on the moments shared with her grandfather, these memories come to life alongside her beloved grandmother, from whom she receives comfort and support.

DARTAŞ

CARPENTER

Xelil Sehragerd / 14 min / 2023 / Iran (Islamic Republic of)

"Mines do not distinguish between civilians and military personnel." On the one hand there are those who plant mines in the ground and on the other there are the people who know how to take care of each other. The Kurdish carpenter Hussein Mahmood is a source of inspiration as he wanders through the forests of a remote mountainous region of Iran looking for the best wood with which to make prosthetics for the victims of these indiscriminate weapons.

MA POULE

MY GIRL

Caroline Ophelie / 18 min / 2023 / Italian premiere / France

After the rooster's death, the only surviving hen in Jasper's henhouse falls into depression. Forced to descend from the mountain, the seventy-year-old goes in search of company for his feathered friend. In the irony of the situation, the depth of the bond that can exist between a man and an animal emerges, where even a hen can have an emotional breakdown to resolve.

MAWSAM

MANITY

Hussen Ibraheem / 15 min / 2023 / Italian premiere / France, Lebanon, Qatar

During a sunny day in the Lebanese mountains, eleven-year-old Firas accompanies his father Tayseer and friend Rayan on a bird hunting trip. Tayseer, eager to teach his son the value of masculinity, entrusts him with a rifle and a knife. However, the boy is growing up and will find the courage to follow his conscience, even at the cost of defying his father's expectations.

ICI EN SILENCE TOUT HURLE

IN SILENCE EVERYTHING ROARS

Akaki Popkhadze / 23 min / 2023 / France

Zourab and Natia live a secret love affair in the snows of the Georgian mountains, in a village where life is still regulated by ancient customs. When news of their relationship spreads, the situation becomes uncontrollable. The film, without a single word, takes us inside a world that struggles between the ancient values of family and honour and the desire of young people to live out their feelings in freedom.