World sales agency Impronta Films has boarded “La Ricerca” (“The Quest”) ahead of its world premiere on April 24 at Visions du Reel, a documentary film festival in Switzerland. The film was written, directed, edited and produced by Giuseppe Petruzzellis. Nicolás Jaar composed the original score.
The film focuses on the Italian artist Luigi Lineri, who has been working continuously on “The Quest” over the last 60 years. It’s a one-of-a-kind installation made of thousands of stones. Pebbles resembling primitive flint tools and symbolic sculptures illustrate the turning points in humanity’s evolution.
Petruzzellis said in a statement: “Luigi’s masterpiece is a formidable tool to investigate universal themes. He has materialized a vast field of anthropological, philosophical and even political topics. Many of these contents are extremely actual and urgent, as, for example, our conflicting relationship with the ecosystem.
“Shaping the film structure, I built on top of these elements. Re-contextualized film archives and evocative images/sounds work in an allusive fashion, further exploring the film themes. It’s a continuing and open dialogue with Luigi and with the audience.
“’La Ricerca’ deals with collective empowerment, reshaping lost memories to build a better future. This conservation topic matters also with regards to the survival of the one-of-a-kind art installation created by Luigi Lineri. Given its peculiarities, there is the risk that it will disappear together with its author, now 85 years old. This film is a legacy of Luigi’s life commitment to art, intended as a way of serving the universal human community.”
The film was produced by Petruzzellis at Aplysia, and coproduced by Alessandro Carroli at EiE Film, and Liza Faktor and Andrea Arena at Vessel, with the collaboration of Lisa Fierro. Cinematography is by Michele Brandstetter de Bellesini and Petruzzellis.
In 2007, Petruzzellis set up Aplysia, a production company specializing in creative documentaries. Since then, he has worked on more than 70 film projects, including 17 features, working as the screenwriter, producer or editor, and he has directed several shorts. Some of these films have played at major film festivals such as Venice, Ji.hlava, CPH:DOX and Sheffield Doc Fest. “La Ricerca” is his debut feature documentary.
