Wandering which film to watch?
“SiciliAmbiente Recommends” is the new column that will accompany us while waiting for the summer 2021 edition. Each month a director or actor recommends unmissable films to all fans of the seventh art. In addition to the titles, also a short review of the film. In short, “tidbits” that can offer food for thought and moments of confrontation for cinema lovers! We are joined by Antonio Bellia, our artistic director, who will do the honors with two essential documentaries.
Enjoy the read, and the film!
THE BLUE PLANET (Italy, 1982)
Directed by: Franco Piavoli
Produced by: March 11 Cinematografica by Silvano Agosti
For Earth Day, in this new column linked to the SiciliAmbiente Film Festival, I want to recommend an Italian film, a poetic film with an incredible expressive force. “Il Pianeta Azzurro”, debut feature film and absolute masterpiece by Franco Piavoli, produced by Silvano Agosti’s 11 Marzo Cinematografica, and presented in 1982 at the Venice Film Festival.
Piavoli made the film entirely in the countryside of his own home with very few financial resources, and with the fundamental help of his wife Neria Poli. A film of pure poetry: only images and no words. It follows the cycle of the seasons in the countryside, from the awakening of life after the winter frosts to the blooms of spring, the summer heat in the work of the fields and the twilight of autumn. Man confronts nature in the succession of seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter. And spring again.
Since its release, the film struck and moved, to the point of pushing a critic like Tullio Kezich to write “This film should be shown by law to all Italians”. But as often happens with masterpieces, distribution struggled to find theaters available for shows. “A friend came to the rescue, a generous filmmaker” recalls Piavoli, “Silvano Agosti, who had already procured me the film by making it from unused clips, he also worked hard to find the right space”.
A tribute to the director Piavoli and to the director and producer Silvano Agosti and to his marvelous “Azzurro Scipioni” theater, which just two months ago closed its shutters after years and years of extraordinary quality programming. In December 1983, Silvano Agosti opened the Azzurro Scipioni precisely in homage to Franco Piavoli’s film, “Il Pianeta Azzurro”, screening it for over a year, with peaks of 400 viewers per day.
In short, a true piece of history of Italian auteur cinema.