»… Play-rew-forward-stop …« audio-video music serie 3.4

The audio-video music series will continue at the Palazzo Cini at San
Vio from October to December, when it will come to a close. The
remaining two short series, entitled after the forward and stop
buttons on video players, are intended to convey a powerful impression
of the plurality of passions, of the “forward” and “stop” in artistic
research, which may be represented by Virgil’s sprawling beech tree (sub tegmine fagi): an uncontrollable manifestation of the hypertrophy of the sense organs trained on beauty.

Venice, Palazzo Cini at San Vio
24 October 2009, 5.00pm

Fourth session: Viesh – [Song]

A
film by Rossella Schillaci (2007)

In
the Albanian enclaves of San Paolo and San Costantino in the Basilicata, the
women sing for several hours a day in emotive, very high foreign voices. They
sign vieshet from hundreds of
years ago which have been handed down from mother to daughter: narrative songs
evoking the historic events in the Albanian diaspora and the exile in southern
Italy in villages surrounded by mountains. They also perform work songs
traditionally chanted out at great speed from one hill to another.
The
film follows the vicissitudes of life in the two rival twin villages, bearing
witness to analogous traditions which have become differentiated so far as to
create diversity. It also focuses on relations between individuals and the
remnants of half-forgotten traditions. The traditions are cherished but also
hated and scorned. The protagonist in the film is the female collectivity,
cloaked in typical female humour in the backward-looking logic of a story of
migrations and homecomings.
The
filming of the documentary was made possible by the Communal Administration of
Piana degli Albanesi, the former Ministry for Regional Affairs and Local
Autonomy, and the Region of Sicily. It is part of "Progetto Alba 9",
a series of nine art films on Arbëresh (Albanian) culture in Italy, devised by
Salvo Cuccia.
The ethnomusicological research and translations are by Nicola
Scaldaferri.

Filmography
and information from and on Rossella Schillaci

La
Fiuma – Incontri sul Po e Dintorni
(2008): direction, subject, screenplay, photography, production

Vjesh/Canto (2007): direction, subject, screenplay, production
Awards
at the eleventh edition of Festival Cinemambiente
Director’s
notes for the documentary
La Fiuma – Incontri sul Po e Dintorni
Awards
at the fourteenth edition of the Sardinia International Ethnographic Film
Festival
Vjesh/Canto by Rossella Schillaci wins the Jean Rouch
International Film Festival
Torino
Film Festival 2007: report, 25 November 2007
Director’s
notes for the documentary Vjesh/Canto

The
films at the 25th edition of the Torino Film Festival