It is the account of a journey taken by a man who left a small village in the Italian Emilia region and travelled through the Himalayan mountains with two friends and a small olive tree. Following the motto "Love is an olive tree" the cheerful party faced the special mission of taking the olive tree to the greatest mountain in the world, as a sign of peace. It was a real challenge because an olive tree had never before been taken to that region and we didn’t know if it would survive the altitude or climatic conditions. The olive tree, symbol of peace, was carried with care and devotion by the three friends, along their ascent to the mountains where they met the local inhabitants and other travellers. The protagonist is amazed by the fact that a small and simple plant can overcome cultural and linguistic barriers, attracting the attention and benevolence of the people and returning a sense of serenity and brotherhood.
Director
Gianpaolo Bigoli
Gianpaolo Bigoli started as a writer of fictional short-length films in 2001 during his degree course in Communication Sciences in Reggio Emilia. In 2005 he took his degree and started attending «Ipotesi Cinema», Ermanno Olmi’s film and cinema training school in Bologna. The encounter with this great director and the work he did in some of his documentary films, strongly influenced Bigoli, encouraged him towards “the cinema of the real world” and the documentary film. At the same time, in 2006 he started to collaborate with some independent production companies in Emilia, as a writer and director in the context of the emerging WEB-TV and in documentary-film production. Filmography: Se Basku ne Fushe Sociale (2005), San Genesio (2006), Certi Incontri Cambiano (2007) and Appunti sul Kivu (2008).