THE SPIRIT OF THE WHEAT - THE GUARDIANS OF THE EARTH

Dettagli

An investigation to reconstruct the lives of the "rebels of consumerism and conventional agriculture", a journey from north to south, along an Italy that does not give up, between places and people who still embody "The spirit of wheat".
From an idea by Isidoro Colluto with the direction of Donato Nuzzo and the editing and collaboration of Fulvio Rifuggio, “The spirit of wheat” is the new work of Mexapya Production, a Salento production company that has already produced three documentaries by success concentrated on the issues of land abandonment, emigration to Switzerland in the twentieth century, and the story of the Eternit workers suffering from cancer.
The new documentary has wheat as its underlying theme and collects the testimonies of Eugenio Pol, "authentic" bakeries with a new life in Valsesia; by Ivo Bertaina, who has been dealing with biodynamic agriculture for years and president of Agri.Bio.Piemonte; by Renzo Sobrino, miller at the nineteenth-century mill of La Morra (Cuneo); of the Girolomoni family, pioneers of organic farming and the redemption of farmers in Isola del Piano (Pesaro - Urbino); by Giuseppe Lirosi, who rediscovered ancient Sicilian grains with Terre e Tradizioni in Raddusa (Catania); by Giacomo Santoleri, who produces olives, cereals and knowledge in the Casino di Caprafico, on the Majella.
«With this new work – says Isidoro Colluto – we want to invite people to reflect and converse about values ​​that are now, unfortunately, not very central. The spirit of wheat is the mythical explanation of the mystery contained in the continuous renewal of life: from the seeds of the old wheat (which dies) the new harvest will be born. And the birth of wheat, and therefore of food, the main and almost only source of sustenance for farmers, was certainly not a secondary fact. It justified special attention, propitiatory ritual sacrifices, in some cases even human ones, then transformed into allegorical representations".
«The documentary is a journey of experiences on earth – adds director Donato Nuzzo – and is an intimate exploration into lives outside the mainstream, based on values ​​that are now out of fashion. In short, an investigation into the different sense of conceiving the relationship with nature, with food, with the community."