"Fiore mio', Paolo Cognetti's directorial debut at the Locarno Film Festival
The famous writer, winner of the Strega Prize for 'The Eight Mountains', went behind the camera to film his beloved mountains
2' min read
Key points
2' min read
An already very famous newcomer: the writer Paolo Cognetti signs his first film work with 'Fiore mio', a documentary that recalls cues and themes from his famous novels, starting with 'Le otto montagne', with which he won the Strega Prize in 2017.
Chosen as the pre-opening event of the Locarno Film Festival 2024, 'Fiore mio' was presented in the magical setting of the Piazza Grande, the iconic venue of the Swiss event to inaugurate its 77th edition, and will arrive in our cinemas from 25 to 27 November.
At the heart of the documentary is the most significant subject of Cognetti's poetics: mountains and the relationship between high peaks and human beings. If the author had already explored certain scenarios in Dario Acocella's documentary "Sogni di Grande Nord" (Dreams of the Great North), where he followed in the footsteps of the Christopher McCandless of "Into the Wild" in the incredible and remote scenery of Alaska, this time Cognetti focuses above all on Monte Rosa, treated not only as a geographical place, but as a space in which we can feel and understand what is around us.
When, in the summer of 2022, Italy is dried up by drought, Cognetti witnesses for the first time the spring from his home in Estoul, a small village at 1700 metres above sea level overlooking the valley of Brusson. This event deeply upset him, so much so that it gave him the idea of wanting to recount the beauty of his mountains, landscapes and glaciers that are now destined to disappear or change forever due to climate change.
An intimate journey
."Fiore mio" is a documentary that is cinematically simple and overly didactic in some of its proposed reflections, but it is also an intimate and personal journey, a heartfelt experience that Cognetti has chosen to share with the viewer.
