Directing
The “Città Giardino” centre for immigrants is closing. There are only six teenagers left in the house. They have all arrived from Africa, walking through the desert, or risking their lives by boat across the sea. Now they are there stuck in the Sicilian hinterland, waiting desperately for a visa that might not come at all or a transfer directive. Thus, the days begin to look all the same. Sleeping, eating, and toying endlessly with their smartphones hoping that something might happen in one way or another. And the feeling of being like a trapped animal or a prisoner grows increasingly stronger. But Sahid does not like to wait anymore, idling around, while time slows down excruciatingly. With the help of his friend Farouq he plots an escape plan.
An old and innocent peasant woman's shaky path towards saintliness turns into a tortuous journey through a pagan, animist world. This tragicomic parable mingles different registers, weaving together biblical, vulgar, fairy tale and literary references, attempting to strike an impossible balance between holiness and blasphemy, faith and cynicism.
In the mineral landscape, the figures seem to belong to a re-imagined archaic age. Huge masks, hieratic postures condense each character into an archetype. Suddenly they reappear in a shadow theater whose stretched sheet echoes the cinema screen. A spectator falls asleep and reappears with an animal mask, simultaneously red riding hood and wolf. Gaia Formenti and Marco Piccareda continue on the path of Creatura dove vai? (FID 2019) with this tale which, its formal fertility becoming sexual, culminates in a hymn of the mucous membrane and bodily fluids. (Nathan Letoré)
