Ashkal (2023)

Between the dazzling first shot—burning debris falling from a satellite entering the atmosphere—and the final sequence merging underwater images with others generated by a specially created camera, a path is sketched out which, in the manner of a reverse science-fiction journey, leads from space exploration to a cemetery in the middle of the ocean.

The great oak tree of Scandiano, in the Reggio Emilia hills, is the silent witness of a long history, that of a territory shaped by nature and human activity. From the late Renaissance to the present, revolutions and traditions have alternated, leaving an uninterrupted flow of images imprinted in the memory of the centuries-old tree. Shot using a drone in a 15-minute sequence plan, The Great Oak is the result of a courageous technical challenge, but above all a conceptual one: to overturn the anthropocentric point of view of film narration and offer a more articulate perspective on reality, on the invisible links between living beings and on our role in the world.