Cinema Made in Vda grows, treasures Schiavone and mountain history

'Rocco and Valle d'Aosta are like Sandra and Raimondo, they hate each other and love each other'. It is with this line that the president of the Film Commission of Valle d'Aosta, Simone Gandolfo, sums up the very close relationship that has been created in recent years between the vice-policeman created by Antonio Manzini, who was sent from Rome to Aosta at a certain point in his career, and the landscapes of the region that host his melancholic story.

Filming is scheduled to begin in 2026 and the following year will see the seventh edition of a product of ingenuity that has married a territory to perfection. The Made in Aosta Valley film industry has grown and matured over time, passing through art-house films such as The Eight Mountains and major American productions linked to the Avengers (2014). A qualitative leap also passed through the support to local companies and workers active in film productions, favoured by the modification of the regional law, which increased the contributions to production companies from 180 thousand to 300 thousand euro.

"For us, products like Rocco Schiavone or the Eight Mountains are real aces in our deck, we work on them a lot and with great care, but we pay a lot of attention to those stories that might not be made in the Aosta Valley, because they are not strictly set in the region and that we want to attract. The 'myth' of promoting the region through real places has to be dispelled, Gandolfo reasons, as demonstrated by the case of the Sicilian village of Montalbano, which does not exist in reality and yet is much visited, or the places where part of the colossal Dune was filmed, in Veneto. 'Places sought out and visited by film lovers, regardless,' he adds.

There are two main productions hosted in the Valley this year, the first is a Christmas comedy, the second is an identity story linked to the mountains. "With the film Bianco," says director Alessandra Miletto, "by Daniele Vicari we will tell the story of Walter Bonatti at the Central Pylon of Freney, a tragic event in 1961, which has entered the history of mountaineering. It is her turn to tell the behind-the-scenes stories, the secrets, of an incredibly impressive industry. And so she describes, for example, the range of palettes designed for Schiavone's series, between shades of blue and green, "capable of rendering an Aosta Valley seen through the eyes of a rebellious man devastated by pain".

Or Savoy Castle, transformed at one point into SS headquarters, with soldiers in uniform and swastika flags, or Gressoney, dressed as Saint Moritz, in the middle of the Covid, therefore armoured, to host the Gucci shoot. Cinema is therefore other than promotion through 'postcard' images and creates deep bonds between places and fans.