Lost in an unfa­mil­iar dig­i­tal realm, Samuel’s soul search­es for a way home, guided only by a mys­te­ri­ous voice from the sky. As he nav­i­gates this vir­tu­al land­scape, the film explores the inter­sec­tion of human iden­ti­ty and dig­i­tal exis­tence, ques­tion­ing how vir­tu­al worlds shape per­cep­tion and con­nec­tion. Blend­ing video game sto­ry­telling with per­son­al intro­spec­tion, this visu­al­ly dynam­ic and artis­ti­cal­ly fluid film reimag­ines cinema through an inti­mate, exper­i­men­tal lens.

Samuele Leogrande grew up in Cas­tro­vil­lari, Italy, where his pas­sion for cinema was sparked in his father’s video rental store. He later moved to Milan to study acting, grad­u­at­ing after a three-year pro­gram while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly direct­ing a number of exper­i­men­tal short films. Since 2019, he has been involved in the orga­ni­za­tion and pro­duc­tion of the Cas­tro­vil­lari Film Festival.

A wild life rescue treats boar and deer at the edge of a nat­ur­al reserve along­side the Treb­bia river, north­ern italy. Hunters pro­tect the non-human life in an area of indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture. Rasputin, the boar lives held under human pro­tec­tion at the limits of legal­i­ty. A group of actors tries to rep­re­sent the move­ments of boars.  

L’OMBRA DI RASPUTIN is a sen­so­r­i­al explo­ration that looks at con­ser­va­tion behav­iours as infra­struc­tures bor­der­ing the “wild life” of a nat­ur­al reserve in the plains sur­round­ing Pia­cen­za, one ter­ri­to­ry amongst the many heav­i­ly trans­formed by indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture in Italy. Humans and non-humans con­verge in assem­blages where care and vio­lence jux­ta­pose to bal­ance out the con­trast­ing forces of two sep­a­rate phe­nom­e­na: Inten­sive agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion and the pro­tec­tion of bio­di­ver­si­ty.  

A man sleeps sound­ly on a col­or­ful sofa. A tele­phone rings. Then he walks through land­scape, some­where in Africa. A vil­lage, a roost­er crows, some­one sleeps under a mos­qui­to tent. The phone is still ring­ing. A radio is turned on and then you see the record­ing studio, the speak­er and a weighty lady - the dream inter­preter. Music, then the first caller of the radio show tells his dream: he climbed a tree and is at a loss. The lady indi­cates to him that things are look­ing up, his sit­u­a­tion will improve.… But dreams are not always so clear and some­times ritual actions are rec­om­mend­ed to the callers as after a con­fes­sion. The sleep­er from the col­or­ful sofa con­tin­ues to wander through var­i­ous scener­ies, he is prob­a­bly the one who wanted to bring a trac­tor to his vil­lage. Was it just a dream or did he make it come true? In any case, at the end he is still asleep. 

This film will be screened simul­ta­ne­ous­ly at Unseen as part of our #Junction_Nairobi, fol­lowed by a shared discussion.

Bruno Rocchi was born in Berg­amo in 1983, stud­ied film at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bologna and attend­ed a reporters’ school in Milan. In 2014, he made the reportage MONTE GOUROUGOU (9 min) and in 2015 he real­ized BLED EL MAHKZEN (45 min), a doc­u­men­tary about power and econ­o­my in north­ern Moroc­co. His latest work is the result of an adven­ture on the bor­ders of Sene­gal on the trail of a man who wanted to take a trac­tor to his native vil­lage. 

In WITH MY THOUGHTS ON THE SEA we follow Nedo, one of the last inde­pen­dent fish­er­men of Piom­bi­no, Italy. While more and more fish­er­men in the area are eco­nom­i­cal­ly forced to sign on with large fish­ing boats, Nedo remains inde­pen­dent. As we sail with him, he shares his thoughts on the tides, the chang­ing world, and the pow­er­ful, unpre­dictable nature of the sea. Through the lens of Nedo’s life and work, the film offers a con­tem­pla­tive med­i­ta­tion on the rela­tion­ship between humans and envi­ron­ment. 

14 year old Andrea spends his summer hol­i­days on the Venice Lagoon. His father and grand­fa­ther have been diving and fish­ing sea urchins since decades and now Andrea is at a cross­road to decide for him­self if he wants to follow in their steps or choose anoth­er path? He faces his first expe­ri­ences in this hard but reward­ing trade.

Jan Stöck­el is an Italian/German direc­tor and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er, living between Berlin and London. He stud­ied visual anthro­pol­o­gy at Gold­smiths Uni­ver­si­ty of London and has worked on sev­er­al video-ethnog­ra­phy projects. His mid-length doc­u­men­tary NO ISLAND LIKE HOME (2019) screened at inter­na­tion­al fes­ti­vals. In 2018 he co-found­ed Open Cell Media, a cre­ative agency pro­duc­ing videos about biode­sign and biotechnologies.

This doc­u­men­tary invites us on a spe­cial jour­ney into the tac­i­turn uni­vers­es of autism. We dive deep into it as we get close to a group of teenagers living in a dis­tant autism care insti­tu­tion in some Ital­ian foothills. Togeth­er with Мах, Geor­gia and other young­sters, we dis­cov­er their dreams, their blos­som­ing youth and become wit­ness­es to the devel­op­ment of their first intimacies.

A very atten­tive and patient camera as well as sen­si­tive musi­cal sound­scapes intend on an immer­sive approach to bring us closer to the inner worlds of the young pro­tag­o­nists. Apart from being very sen­so­ry and giving insights into the world of autism, MARANA touch­es on much of the uneasy topic of ethics in doc­u­men­tary work and ques­tions its boundaries.

Direc­tor, cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Gio­van­ni Benini, Davide Provolo
Sound: Gio­van­ni Benini, Davide Pro­vo­lo, Matias Campaci
Edit­ing: Pier­pao­lo Filomeno
Music: Lite Orches­tra (Matias Cam­paci, Thomas Pizzini)
Sound edit­ing: Ludovic Van Pachterbeke
Sound mix: Samuele Tezza
Col­or­grad­ing: Ste­fano Bellamoli
Pro­duc­tion: Ginevra Gadioli
Con­tact: ezmefilm.com/marana

No Eng­lish trans­la­tion available.

Against the back­drop of a barren land­scape, coal-miners advance towards the many mines that dot Sicily’s inner land. Crowd­ing into a lift they dis­ap­pear 500 meters under the sur­face of the earth. Above the day­time, the world is idyl­lic. The sun shines bright­ly; the sound of crick­ets fills the air. This pow­er­ful con­trast under­scores De Seta’s edit­ing. While the people above work at their own pace, the men below toil to the rhythm of machines.
Geneviève Rossier 

In this film De Seta depicts the harsh exis­tence of herds­men in the moun­tains of Sar­dinia. They squeeze out what they can form the barren land­scape to feed their goats. The herds­men are part of a land­scape against which they have to strug­gle to sur­vive. They seek refuge in their little hut, where they sit qui­et­ly by the fire while a bitter wind howls out­side, sweep­ing snow across dark boulders.

Orgoso­lo, Oliena and Manci­na are remote vil­lages in the par­tic­u­lar­ly inhos­pitable Sar­din­ian hin­ter­land. The inhab­i­tants make a meagre living prin­ci­pal­ly from pas­toral activ­i­ties. Since the men spend most of their time with their herds, the women work togeth­er in the fields, col­lect­ing fire­wood, prepar­ing the bread, doing the wash­ing in the tor­rent and look­ing after the children.