For a team working in a cultural institute, there can also be an odd moment of collective relaxation, such as watching a film. An example of this occurred at the beginning of this month, when a group of people working for the ICBIE had the opportunity to see three recent Italian films: Il Paese Dove gli Alberi Volano (The Country Where the Trees Fly), by Davide Barletti and Jacopo Quadri, Per amor vostro (For Your Love) by Giuseppe Gaudino and N-Capace by Eleonora Danco. The showings took place within the eleventh edition of “Coisa de Cinema – Panorama Internacional”, a festival that that was held downtown, in the theater Spazio Itau – Glauber Rocha, in Salvador, from the end of October to the beginning of November 2015.
All of us expressed particular interest and appreciation for Il Paese Dove gli Alberi Volano, especially because of certain parallels to what the ICBIE attempts to realize. Taking place in the small Danish town of Holstebro, the film builds upon the 50th anniversary of the Odin Teatret, to present in a heartfelt and winning manner, the unique example that has made this multicultural theater company so important to the history of theater during the last century. The film also pleased us because of its lack of eulogistic banter regarding the figure of Eugenio Barba, the founder and mentor from Puglia, and for its ability to highlight an aspect of the Odin Teatret that is not of secondary importance, and namely, its being a community of people – coming from every part of the world – that share not only a specific theatrical conception, but even more, an idea of communitarian life. Before the projection of Per amor vostro (whose protagonist, Valeria Golino, won the prize for best actress at the Venice Film Festival 2015), on the terrace of the G. Rocha, there was a performance of young Bahian dancers who had been chosen by Barba to participate in the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary (as depicted in the film). As darkness fell, their exhibition was even more suggestive, and their dances were warmly appreciated by the public.N-capace, by Eleonora Danco, is a film documentary where the director interprets a tormented soul who wanders around in pajamas and with her bed between the cities of Rome and Terracina, asking existential questions to young and old.
Davide Stadirani and Andrea Zeccato
