28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
A Volatile Tale
director: Carla Vestroni
original title: Una storia volatile
country: Italy
year: 2017
running time: 44 min.
synopsis
The unexpected birth of young birds frames this daily observation of a bird colony from the window of a flat in Rome. A poetic juxtaposition of human and bird life, of the search for god and a yearning for perfection, plays out on a minimalist stage of a few slanting rooftops. The footage of urban gulls, taken with a shaky handheld camera and intercut with shots of nuns from the neighbouring monastery, are mixed with poems, excerpts from novels and classical music. Only now and then – in a reflection in a window or from a seemingly banal conversation – do we learn anything about the people behind the camera.
„Is life linear? Why should narration be. Our attentive eyes excite our thoughts. Let's follow them. A Volatile Tale proceeds through associations describing not the existing but the experience." C. Vestroni
biography
Carla Vestroni (1942) teaches courses on Italian cinema for foreign students at Gonzaga University in Florence and at the British Council in Bologna. She is also a regular contributor to Cinema Sessanta magazine. Besides writing on film theory, she has also created several experimental video documentaries, such as The Sorting Game (2007), In The Bench (2008) and A Life Away, which have been showing at numerous European film festivals.more about film
| director: | Carla Vestroni |
| producer: | Sophie Chiarello, Carla Vestroni |
| photography: | Carla Vestroni |
| editing: | Carla Vestroni |
| music: | Pino Censi |
| sound: | Paolo de Laurentiis |
