Sounds Real
From the Depths Dal profondo Valentina Pedicini
Italy, 2013 DCP, color, 73 min
Valentina Pedicini: directing debut
Director: Valentina Pedicini Cinematography: Jacob Stark Screenplay: Valentina Pedicini Editing: Luca Mandrile Sound Design: Stefano Grosso, Riccardo Spagnol, Marzia Cordò, Daniela Bassani Music: Federico Campana Production: Alessandro Borrelli for La Sarraz Pictures World Sales: Slingshot Films International Sales Screening Copy: Slingshot Films International Sales
A subdued, fascinating descent into the last coal mine in Italy and the lives of the miners, including a woman. Slowly the camera drops to 500 meters (1,640 feet) below the surface, while the woman reminiscences in voice-over about the first time she went down. “This is our world. This is your home,” her father said at the time. There are a few of these more or less staged moments in this portrait of a dangerous, unhealthy and poorlypaid vocation. Most of the time, however, the film crew behaves like a fly on the wall. The viewer gets its information from the mutual discussions or press conferences during a strike. For a long time there have been talks of closure, and some employees are in favor of that themselves. “Coal is an old story,” muses the female mine worker, the only woman in a male-dominated world. One of the sporadic scenes shot aboveground emphasizes this fact, as we see that the mine overlooks a large wind farm. From the Depths captures the hard work itself as well as the camaraderie among the miners. The fear that their toil will ever be forgotten is allayed by this beautiful film.
Habitat
Victor Semeniuk
Russia, 1986 DCP, color, 26 min Director: Victor Semeniuk Cinematography: Victor Michalchenko, Sergey Skvortsov Editing: Victor Semeniuk, Victor Kossakovsky Sound: Leonid Lerner Production: Vladilen Kuzin for Leningrad Documentary Film Studio Screening Copy: Kossakovsky Film Production
Victor Semeniuk:
Pod’em (1983) Mesta Obitaniya (1986) Kazennaya Doroga (1988) Dom Romanovyh (1992) a.o.
This fascinating 1986 collage illustrates how the hardships of a Russian landscape don’t stop humans from making their home there. A snowbound home gets dug out, a truck ploughs its way through the white landscape, a man struggles through tons of snow with a tent that blew off. At the alien-looking base camp, dozens of tubular, steel containers are home to the men who work there. While snowdrifts accumulate against their steel cocoon, they drink hot tea between heavily blanketed bunk beds. Helicopter shots underline the immensity of the snowfield, which is home to large herds of reindeer and warmly wrapped nomads. Oil rigs rise on the horizon in the midst of the fairy-tale landscape; a giant frigate passes through grinding ice. Marching music and mysterious electronic sounds accompany this commentary-free film that underlines the contrast between the industrial invasion and nature’s imposing forces. The permanently gray skies and the omnipresent snow make Habitat seem black-and-white: only indoors does color reappear. A snowball fight reveals a white world that also offers its inhabitants joy.
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