Overview

While filming a documentary on Tommasso Cestrone, the volunteer steward of a dilapidated palace in Castera, director Pietro Marcello hoped to bring attention to labor and, broadly, the effects of austerity and crime syndicates on the Italian countryside and its ecologies. When Cestrone passed away during filming, Marcello continued the documentary by shifting its narrative directly into the fabulist realm, complete with a narrating buffalo named Sarciapone and a Puncinella character rising from Mt. Vesuvius to travel with Sarciapone throughout Italy. After that lane change to a cottony road movie, the hybrid film ruminates on nature’s tenderness, Italy’s calmative ruralities, and the mortality of all beasts of burden, be they human or buffalo.

Co-presented by Nanovic Institute of European Studies.