A la vita!

(To life!)
by Sandro Gastinelli, Marzia Pellegrino
95’, Italy, 2010

We are in Baracco, a small division of Roccaforte Mondovì, in the western  Alps in the southern part of the Piedmont region. Here, where kyè, a linguistic variant of the Provençal Alpine language is still spoken, a group of friends decides to relive the era of the old buscatiè, or woodcutters. Dressed in period clothes and using only the tools of the time, thanks to the help and experience of Barba Ninu, the last of the great buscatiè of these mountains, they depart  for the woods, dressed in the colours of autumn. The felling of the beech and  chestnut trees, the setting up of the launching piazza (above) and the arrival point (below), the transportation and the tension of the heavy steel cords with the wooden lathe built on site: all is carried out as it once was, without the aid of mechanical means. Winter comes and with it comes snow. It is time to go back up there, on a sunny day. With the cry “A la vita!”, the timber is launched and sails quickly, hissing, on the rope before it lands below. The sleds will transport the wood down the steep ridges of the Ellero valley, and to  the town.

Sandro Gastinelli, Marzia Pellegrino
Sandro Gastinelli and Marzia Pellegrino live in Rosbella di Boves, in the mountains of Cuneo.  In 1990 they founded Studiouno Produzioni Televisive. With the film, Parla de Kyè, they began producing and directing films and documentaries about their mountains. In 2008 Marzia Pellegrino directed her first documentary, Unaza fort. They are the co-artistic directors of the film section of the Festival della Montagna in Cuneo.