A small story through sounds and images whose protagonists are the Calabrian charcoal burners and their ancestral craft, which continues to endure today in the Calabrian territory. “Fuliggine” is the director’s new short film Domenico Pisaniproduced by Reboto Production with the support of the Calabria Film Commission, which will be premiered in competition at the Catania Film Fest, in the competitive section dedicated to Italian shorts, scheduled from 12 to 19 November.
A work entirely shot in Serra San Bruno, a return to the roots in the director’s country of origin, who divides his time between Rome and Calabria, carrying forward a new small, young and dynamic independent production company, with the ambition of enhancing the territory in a process of artistic and professional growth. One of his projects, “A homogeneous whole”, won the European festival “Proud of Our Heritage, Open to the World” in 2019, organized by the Italian Delegation to the Council of Europe, and screened at the Odyssèe cinema in Strasbourg. In 2020 the short film “Le vite possibili”, after having participated in numerous festivals, was included in the Shorts TV channel of Amazon Prime Video and subsequently purchased by Rai Cinema.
Now with “Soot” – starring Domenico Maiolo, Carmelo Giordano And Anna Maria De Luca – the director will be in competition at the Catania Film Festival, a prestigious meeting and discussion place for the “new” European cinema, which avails itself of a management and scientific committee of absolute importance.
A conflictual relationship between father and son and lack as a universal feeling and condition represent the fulcrum of the story that the director had in mind for some time: “This work also wants to make us reflect on the conditions of those who, in the Calabrian greenhouses, still carry on today hard work, which knows no timetables or bad weather, living almost according to the production of coal”, comments Pisani. “It is the story of the “last”, of humble people on the margins of society, always dirty with soot. A premise to also talk about job insecurity, a topic which is unfortunately still current, but which in that particular context, with the advent of new machinery and industries, would lead to the annihilation of a thousand-year-old tradition”.
The short was the winner of the “Audiovisual Productions 2022” tender promoted by the Calabria Film Commission: “A work that tells the story of a social, landscape and cultural universe of Calabria projected towards modernity, but which knows how to look towards its roots and its stories” , comments the Extraordinary Commissioner of CFC, Anton Giulio Grande. “This is the meaning of the short film Fuliggine that the young Calabrian author Domenico Pisani constructed with elegance and determination, with a carefully chosen cast that well represents our artistic territories. A way to strengthen a method also for the future of Pisani and his team.”