Franco Piavoli
The feast of St. Peter in a country village. The priest admonishes his parishioners to confess and be free of avarice, but after mass he invites them all to make merry. Outside the church the elderly villagers are the first to start dancing, while street artists entertain passers by and the kids fly around on brightly lit carousels. There is als an old man inside at home, an invalid in a wheelchair, a young man wandering lost in thought, while a lonely woman watches the cuddling couples. Every year in towns, villages and urban neighborhoods there are traditional feasts to celebrate the patron saint. They reflect a need for faith, conviviality and entertainment, but for some they also make the sense of solitude and apprehension even stronger. Share:
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
Throughout the seasons, the work of a farmer in his vegetable garden, from the seed to its fruit.
A zebu disappears while children are drawing it. They find it again in the woods. The notes of a harp accompany their multi-coloured joy. This short was made with children from a nursery school in Mantua. Playing with colours, the children seem to conquer the world.
2004 documentary by Franco Piavoli based on correspondence between poets Alessandro Parronchi and Umberto Bellintani.
Using few words and gorgeous imagery, this is a poetic painting of a family, each in their own space on an August afternoon.
A forerunner of Al Primo Soffio Di Vento. Observations along the riverside, the flow of water, the stasis of life, and the emergence of a teenager’s sexual desires.
Seasons of the year are used to frame human life, from birth to death.
A man walks with his child on the grass of a hill. He reaches an old country house, where years before he had spent his childhood during World War II. The deserted and desolate rooms make him travel back in memory to the time when the war was ending. Episodes of family life pass before his eyes: father, mother, grandmother and six children, of which he, Silvano, the youngest, was made mute by the shock of a bomb exploding...
At the end of the war, Odysseus, the wandering hero, with his companions begins his sail back home to the Mediterranean. The conclusion of his adventure is delayed by many natural obstacles and he takes an internal journey of fleeting memories of his childhood, his parents, love for a beautiful girl, nostalgia for the past, regret for what he did, and the deep silence that envelops everything. He confronts the most terrible loneliness following a shipwreck in which all the comrades perish.
In a Renaissance castle, masks and costumes are moving animated by moonlight. In this magical atmosphere, the painting of a girl comes to life, while two young men behind bars and listen to music and singing in a large room a prince wanders in the throes of loneliness
The director interviews five people with different backgrounds about love and sex.
A look at the passage of time through the changing seasons, human evolution and everyday life.
Emigrants from Calabria arrive at Milan station with their luggage, to make their home there or set off for other destinations. A man falls asleep in a waiting room. The travellers look lost and tired. The language of the others is henceforth incomprehensible; they are already foreigners in their own country.
Young peasants come together to dance in the evening. The girls arrive by bike; the boys get ready for them by doing their hair. The less shy amongst them begin to dance. Then, some of them go home, singing as they go, delighted to have obtained a promise. Others take advantage of the dark to make love.
Eternal and cyclical movement. A young woman crosses the seasons. With his 8mm Paillard, Piavoli starts his poetic journey with a drawn-out gaze on nature, which condenses passing time into a single shot.
