Berlinale 2020 Review: Semina il Vento by Danilo Caputo

After breaking up with her boyfriend, young agronomy student Nica comes back to her family in Puglia, thus ending a 3-year absence from home. Shortly after her arrival she finds out that her grandma's olive garden is threatened by a parasite.

The 21-year old Nica soon faces the duplicity of the local community: during the day the locals organize religious processions intended to save the trees, while during the night they allow for the soil to be infected. The discovery is even harder to bear, when it involves her own father. Paola, Nica's friend, describes the local situation in a nutshell: it is not only nature which is attacked by parasites, but people's own minds, in the first place. The locals' abuse towards their own environment is also visible in everyday gestures. When a neighbour throws his garbage on Nica's family land, she “strikes back”: together with her friend Paola, Nica collects the garbage bags and throws them over the neighbour's own gate. Her action is a first sign of her determination, patience and rebellion.

But Nica's first battlefield turns out to be within her own family. The young student rebels first towards her mother, who suffers from a mixture of guilt, a show of appearances and complacency. And then also towards her father, who only thinks of the profit he can make from selling the olive garden. His resort to violence in the confrontation with his daughter comes to prove Paola's previous words and thus expose the community's profound alienation from themselves and from nature.

Nica is a very empathetic person in the way she communicates with the organic and the animal world, visible in the way she touches tree trunks and listens to them and how she caresses and protects her new friend, a magpie. For me Nica's bird friend is not necessarily or not only an embodiment of her grandma's soul. I think Danilo Caputo is more interested in showing how everything (people, plants, animals) is connected and animated by spirit. This idea is also reinforced by the wind's presence in the film. This vision also lends the film its title: semina il vento, sow the wind, sow the soul of life.

With the help of scientific research, Nica tries to find a solution to fight the parasite and save the olive garden. She also has a special connection with her late grandma. Seen by some locals as a kind of sorceress, she stands for a forgotten connection between man and nature. More than superstitious or pagan believes, she embodies a belief in the powers of nature.

This holistic view upon nature finds its visual translation in a very poetic landscape, which arouses the senses. But the director goes beyond the aesthetic side of nature, focusing on capturing its vitality, expressiveness and regenerative powers.

The saving of the olive trees will come from a combination of forces: young rebellion, determined research, invocation of invisible spirits, grandmotherly love... and a touch of mystery.

As director Danilo Caputo said during the Q&A session at the film's premiere at the Berlinale in February 2020, he wanted to make a film against resignation, which he often encountered when visiting his home in Italy. I think his film succeeds in being both poetic, suggestive, motivating and optimistic.

Berlin, the 8^th of April 2020

Originally written in German for www.uncut.at. 

With many thanks to Harald Zettler for providing the Berlinale-tickets

 

Bohemians in Berlin: Sonja Witte, painter, dancer, choreographer

 

Ioana: 1.Was bedeutet Bohemien (Bohemian auf Englisch) für dich?

Sonja: boheme sauvage... ungebundenes, ungezwungenes Künstlerdasein; unkonventionelles Künstlermilieu, "die Boheme ist seine Welt". Die künstlerische Freiheit steht über der eingeschränkten Gleichheit. Die Vielfalt der Kulturen, der Religionen und der Philosophie ist die Würze des Lebens und gewinnt an Artenreichtum in Form geistreicher Avantgarde.

2.Kennst du irgendwelche Bohemen? Könntest du sie nennen?

viele meiner Bekannten drücken sich künstlerisch aus, so wie du z. B.

3.Siehst du dich als eine Bohemienne? Wie genau?

ja genau genommen lebe ich den bohemmen lebensstil. Ich lebe nicht für das große Geld noch für die standards bürgerlicher Werte wie Luxus im Überfluss ohne jedliche Nachhaltigkeit, sondern ausschließlich der wohlwollenden Pilger -und Freidenkerpfade. So bleibe ich im Fluss mit meinem Inneren und Äußeren.

4.Was magst du besonders an Berlin?

Berlin ist für mich Venedig mit seinen vielen Gewässern und Seen, viel grün und Natur. Berlin mit seinen vielseitigen lebendigen Kulturgeschichten ist tolerant und weltoffen. Leben und leben lassen.. Verrücktheiten und schelmisch vorlaute Aussprachen bewegen die Berliner Mentalität in eine Offenheit und Austauschaktion für anders Denkende und Fühlende. Ich bin in guter Gesellschaft.

 

 5.Findest du Berlin eine Stadt der Bohème?

Berlin, eine Stadt für Bohème. Ich weiß nicht recht. Aber ja doch. Sie bietet diese eigenwillige Möglichkeit aus den Hamsterrad auszubrechen und andere Wege zu nutzen. Denn als Künstler kannst du hier dich künstlerisch ausprobieren, aber Geld daraus machen ist schwer. Die Versuchung schnelles Geld zu machen und bürgerlich zu werden ist gering. Hier sind wir arm, aber attraktiv.

Foto1: Sonja in ihrem offenen Atelier beim Ortstermin Kunst-Festival in Berlin-Moabit, August 2020. Die Aura ihres Künstlerstudios wird sichtbar

Foto2: Sonja und ich, die Maestra und die Fotografin: Lebensfreude. À la Venetienne!