Wall-E, an animated film, tells a story of how humankind has left Earth and floats through outer space in a giant starship. Everyone on board is taken care of round the clock with nothing left to do for a living, so everyone is growing fat, with bodies like pears. It takes a lot of endearing perseverance from a little robot to bring all those humans back to Earth. We’re coming down to the ground, there’s no better place to go, is the lesson they’ve eventually learnt. They then resolve to take better care of the land and to plant new crops. They’ve found that the Earth is worth taking some pains.
Time and again, while reviewing the documentary submissions we received for this year’s Filmfest, it crossed my mind that we might be heading towards a way of living that would render all effort useless and leave the Earth a wasteland indeed. In many parts of the world, those who want to till the soil with their feet on the ground are not allowed to do so. People are displaced from the land they’ve been working and living on for generations, coping with nature’s hardships, often in poverty, but humbly and responsibly. They know that there’s no better place for them, yet are denied the place they belong. And once they’ve been driven out, we call them economic migrants, scornfully, as if their fates weren’t worth taking a closer look at.
Not all of the films we will see at the upcoming Provinziale deal with this topic, far from. But taking care of what we have and what used to be is a theme which is present in all four categories. The films we’ve thus selected do us good, even though the stories they tell are often not very pleasant. But, partly without knowing, they speak of a different culture of interacting and relating to the world around us; one that makes it worthwhile taking a closer look, because there really is no better place for us.
We’ve been through a productive year, and thanks to our obliging sponsors and supporters, we were able to put all our strength into the Filmfest preparations. We look forward to the festival and to meeting and talking to you.
