Di padre in figlia

(From Father to Daughter)
by  Micol Cossali
50’, Italy, 2009

Sonia Spagnoli is a young university student, fragile and at the same time corageous. She spends every summer, with her father and brothers, in a cheese-making hut at 2200 metres. The sounds of the mountains and of the work, but above all the hands of the protagonists, with their simple gestures that reassume an antique culture, give rhythm to this story. Sonia’s hands  “comb” the butter, while those of Giacomo, her father, pull from the “caldera” an unripe form of Silter. Those of Giovanni, in continuous and precarious equilibrium, are at work milking a cow, and those of little Ivan, already able to do the work of an adult, chop firewood with amazing energy. Above all and above everything is time, which both dictates the slow rhythms of the daily chores, and gives a sense of urgency to the milestones of life. In the mountains, one grows up too fast, and grows old too fast, but at the end of the day everyone knows that they have given their all — never less, and often much more.

Micol Cossali
Born in 1976, after a degree in philosophy she studied cinema and collaborated with various film and television productions before making her first feature, Un grande sonno vero - Vita e morte di Guido Rossa alpinista e operaio, presented in competition at the Trento Filmfestival in 2007.