This film is loosely based of the life of explorer, filmmaker and photographer Father Alberto Maria De Agostini (1883–1960), one marred by stubbornness, excess and suffering. When he was 26 years old, De Agostini left his small village in Piedmont to work as a missionary in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, arriving in 1910. He climbed mountains, discovered fjords and explored glaciers, giving them names. He had no other way to describe his torment and pain at the death of the last Indians than his photographs and film Terre Magellaniche (Magellan’s Lands). His work ended up hidden amongst the sad remnants of ‘white civilisation’ in a chaotic, imaginary warehouse of memories where two boys are searching for traces of De Agostini. The Indians, whose ghosts still linger, accompany them as they remember their extermination at the hands of their colonisers and the stealing of their surroundings and land.
Directors
Isabella Sandri
Isabella Sandri graduated in performing arts in Bologna and obtained a diploma in direction at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. In the 1980s she made various films about women artists and intellectuals, then turning her attention to the direction of numerous documentaries. From 2003 to 2008, together with Giuseppe Gaudino, she was involved in the making of a film documentary, "Storie d’Armi e di Piccoli Eroi" filmed in Afghanistan, about the life of a child orphaned by smart bombs.
Giuseppe Gaudino
Born in Pozzuoli in 1957, he graduated in direction and screenwriting at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. His film "Aldis" was shown at the Berlin and Venice film festivals and at the Student Academy Awards. Another of his films, "Giro di Lune tra Terra e Mare", participated in the competition at the 54th Venice International Film Festival and received awards at numerous international festivals, winning the Rotterdam Tiger Award, among others.
Gallery
