LE QUATTRO VOLTE

Le Quattro Volte              Michelangelo Frammartino                  2011/88 min

An old shepherd lives his last days in a quiet medieval village perched high on the hills of Calabria, at the southernmost tip of Italy. He herds goats under skies that most villagers have deserted long ago. A new goat kid is born. We follow its first few tentative steps until it gains strength and goes to pasture. Nearby, a majestic tree stirs in the mountain breeze and slowly changes through the seasons, until transformed into fuel through the ancestral work of the local Calabrian charcoal makers.

A beautiful and poetic and almost wordless vision of the revolving cycles of life and nature in the unbroken traditions of a timeless place, Le Quattro Volte (the Four Times) appears as the metaphor of a soul that moves through four successive states of being.

This screening is part of the season THE WORKED EARTH curated in dialogue with SIDE Gallery’s exhibitions Otherwise Unseen by Tessa Bunney and Waiting for Winter by Rena Effendi both of which explore human relationships with the land. We have drawn films from the Ukraine, Loas, Turkey, France, Italy and England that each expand the conversation around this work. The extraordinary films ask questions about time, humans relationship with the environment and our role within fragile ecosystems. We will also be exploring the tensions between rural and urban environments and the relationships that are grown both in harmony with the land and in opposition.

Each screening will be followed by a facilitated conversation with members of the Amber Collective, invited guests and the audience.