Paolo Cognetti's “Fiore Mio” opens the 65th Festival dei Popoli
The Italian premiere of “Fiore Mio,” the first film written, directed and starring Paolo Cognetti, will open the 65th edition of the Festival dei Popoli, dedicated to the best of international documentary cinema, on Saturday, Nov. 2, at 8:30 p.m. in Florence at La Compagnia cinema (presales open from Oct. 10 on the website).
The festival-chaired by Roberto Ferrari, with artistic direction by Alessandro Stellino and organizational direction by Claudia Maci - will continue in various locations around the city until Nov. 10.
After the success of “The Eight Mountains”-based on his novel of the same name and directed by Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes 2022-Cognetti makes his directorial debut with a work in which he focuses on his passion for the mountains, a place of encounters and discoveries, a geographical space but also an inner dimension.
When Italy is dried up by drought in the summer of 2022, the writer witnesses for the first time the spring near his home in Estoul, a small village at 1700 meters above sea level overlooking the valley of Brusson in the Aosta Valley. An event that deeply disturbs him and prompts him to recount the beauty of his mountains and glaciers destined to disappear or change forever because of the climate crisis. Cognetti thus leads us to the peaks of Quintino Sella, Orestes Hutte and Mezzalama, through breathtaking landscapes and encounters with those who in the mountains have found, before than a home, a real “place of feeling.”
In his journey, Cognetti is not alone: in addition to those who live or have lived with him those places-such as cinematographer Ruben Impens, the same as in The Eight Mountains, or his lifelong friends Remigio, Arturo Squinobal and his daughter Marta, the women of the shelters Corinne and Mia, the silent sherpa Sete and the inseparable dog Laki-there is the invaluable presence of singer-songwriter Vasco Brondi, a fraternal friend of the author and on this occasion, for the first time, at work on an entire soundtrack. For the documentary, in addition to the original music, Brondi wrote and performed a new song, “Ascoltare gli alberi.” “Fiore mio,” the track featured in the finale and which inspired its title, on the other hand, has long been one of the most popular songs of Andrea Laszlo De Simone, a singer-songwriter and musician from Turin who won the César 2024 Award for Best Original Music for ‘Animal Kingdom (Le Règne Animal),’ becoming the first Italian to win this prestigious prize.
“Fiore mio”, which premiered at the 77th Locarno Film Festival, is produced by Samarcanda Film, Nexo Studios, Harald House and EDI Effetti Digitali Italiani with the support of the Film Commission Vallée d'Aoste and in collaboration with Montura and Jeep, technical partner SONY, production service L'Eubage.
“I have long followed and admired Paolo Cognetti's work,” Stellino explained, ”and I am thrilled at the idea to open the festival with his magnificent directorial debut, one in which the audience will find many of the themes explored with passion and sensitivity in his literature. Fiore mio is a film that speaks to people's hearts and relies on important collective issues, also bringing to the surface existential questions that affect each one of us. It is not only an excellent work from a technical and cinematographic point of view: it is a film of inner landscapes, of dialoguing solitudes, about life choices that have to do with faith in the human being and in something greater, and it pushes the spirit of the viewer to desire to rise up and overcome every obstacle.”
