The laboratory tests and the complex work involved in the construction of the dam in the Lei Valley are described in detail to give an idea of the complexity of building the Lei Rhine Dam. Among dams of the double-curvature vault type, this one has the largest crowning development in the world. The construction of the dam is punctuated by the long speeches and anecdotes of an elderly foreman (from: Archivio Nazionale Cinema Impresa, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_hgZowxYig)
Director
ERMANNO OLMI
Ermanno Olmi was born in 1931. He moved to Milan as a young man to enrol in the city’s Academy of Dramatic Art. To make a living, he worked for EdisonVolta, where between 1953 to 1961, he directed about thirty documentaries including La diga sul ghiacciaio (1953), Tre fili fino a Milano (1958) and Un metro è lungo cinque (1961). His cinema debut came with Il tempo si è fermato (1959), a feature film about the friendship between the guard at a dam and a student. In 1977 Olmi made his masterpiece, L'albero degli zoccoli, which won prestigious awards. In the following years, his work was acclaimed by both public and critics alike. After Centochiodi (2007), Olmi announced that he would no longer make fiction films but would return to his first love, documentaries. The following year, he was awarded a Career Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
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