An irrepressible villager decides to defeat a massive mountain in order to allow life into his inhospitable valley and to fight against a merciless fate. Monumentally told, this myth of the medieval Alps summons today’s life warriors through the immediate and highly visual energy of the Iranian globetrotter’s cinematic imagery.
Deep in the Middle Ages and even deeper in a valley where the sun’s rays don’t shine, Agostino suffers with his family. Everyone has abandoned the accursed place, but Agostino can’t manage to uproot himself and defy his fate. Yet his struggles against poverty have become a bitter futility, leading Agostino to renounce his faith. Anger harries him toward a gargantuan revolt against the very mountain whose shadow is oppressing his life. Is the Sisyphean fate he has taken on a nonsensical attack against God, or, conversely, does the mountain hide a rare treasure given only to human beings – the ability to challenge and to possess a liberating self-awareness? In his latest film, Amir Naderi sends his characters out to face seemingly extreme, hopeless situations. This time, however, he submits his most basic theme as the purest of allegories, letting it speak through the unfiltered language of monumental images rather than words and symbols. The picture thus offers a universal message for those today who have lost hope for life and for the future: “We will only bring about change if we achieve the impossible.”
Jakub Jiřiště
95 min / Color, DCP
Director Amir Naderi
/ Screenplay Amir Naderi
/ Dir. of Photography Roberto Cimatti
/ Editor Amir Naderi
/ Art Director Daniele Frabetti
/ Producer Rino Sciarretta
/ Production Zivago Media
/ Coproduction Citrullo International, Cineric Inc, Ciné-sud Promotion, KNM
/ Cast Andrea Sartoretti, Claudia Potenza, Zaccaria Zanghellini, Anna Bonaiuto
/ Sales TV Co. Srl
Amir Naderi (b. 1946, Abadan, Iran) has been one of the most influential personalities of New Iranian Cinema since the 1970s. His early movies were closely tied to Iranian life and culture but took inspiration from the esthetic of Italian neorealism, e.g. work with nonprofessional actors, a loose narrative structure, and socially relevant topics. The Runner (Davandeh, 1984), about a boy trying to fulfill his dreams in the inhospitable environment of postwar Iran, enjoyed widespread international acclaim. At the beginning of the 1990s Naderi emigrated to the USA; since then directing has taken him around the world where he has demonstrated unusual openness towards other cultural traditions. For example, his penultimate feature Cut (2011 – Another View at KVIFF 2012) is a poetic tribute to classic Japanese cinema but also a social critique of contemporary Japan made directly in the Land of the Rising Sun.
TV Co. Srl
Via Buccari 16, 001, Rome
Italy
Phone: +39 063 105 5690
E-mail: [email protected]
Andrea Sartoretti
Actor
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