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

In 2003 the German musician Uwe Berkemer founded, in Tbilisi, the Caucasian Chamber Orchestra featuring musicians from every corner of the Caucasus, the mountainous region that extends for 1200 kilometers from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea. In this land, disoriented after the fall of the USSR, many different ethnic groups who speak more than 40 languages live side by side. The musicians in this orchestra come from various republics of the Caucasus region: Russia, Chechnya, Armenia, Azeri, Daghestan, and others. They play together and overcome every difficulty to hold concerts in all of the republics of the Caucasus and thus demonstrate that peaceful coexistence, in this region martyred by war, is indeed possible. They have a great dream: a final concert in the capital of Chechnya, Grozny. This film is a travel diary that accompanies the orchestra from rehearsals to the concerts in the most distant parts of the Caucasus, entering at times in the homes of the musicians to tell the story of their lives and hopes for their native lands. 

• 

  Fulvio Mariani

  Born in Chaux-de-Fonds in 1958, he is both a director and producer, and is passionate about Alpinism and photography. Since 1981 he has worked for the RSI, making films with the most world-renowned Alpinists. He often collaborated with Mario Casella. At the Film Festival della Lessinia, the two directors won the Lessinia D'Oro in 2008 with Grozny Dreaming, the prize from the public and prize from the jury of inmates in 2012 with Vite tra i vulcani and participated in 2016 with Inverno afghano.
  

• 

  Mario Casella

  Mario Casella is an Alpine guide, journalist and writer. Since 1985 he has worked as a producer and documentary filmmaker for the Swiss television RSI as well as on independent productions, often with Fulvio Mariani. At the Film Festival della Lessinia they won the Lessinia D'Oro in 2008 with Grozny Dreaming, the prize from the public and the prize from the jury of inmates in 2012 with Vite tra i vulcani and participated in 2016 with Inverno afghano.