Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

July 2 - 10, 2010

The Wind Blows Round
( Il vento fa il suo giro )

Colour, 35 mm
Italy, 2005, 107 min
Section: Focus on New Italian Directors
Film trailer: Higher quality | Lower quality

Director: Giorgio Diritti
Screenplay: Fredo Valla, Giorgio Diritti
Dir. of Photography: Roberto Cimatti
Music: Marco Biscarini, Daniele Furlati
Editor: Edu Crespo, Giorgio Diritti
Producer: Simone Bachini, Mario Chemello, Giorgio Diritti
Production: Aranciafilm
Sales: Aranciafilm
Contact: Filmitalia

Cast

Thierry Toscan, Alessandra Agosti, Dario Anghilante, Giovanni Foresti

Synopsis

The Maira valley in the Italian Alps offers fantastic scenery, with steep wooded slopes, plateaus with meadows and pastures, and tiny stone villages nestling in the hillside. They have a colourful and dramatic history, but they are dying out, the houses are shut and only come to life with the arrival of tourists at the beginning of summer. A young French family from the border region decide to rent a farm in one of the villages. Philippe Héraud used to be a teacher but today he has several hundred goats and produces goat’s cheese in large quantities. His attractive wife looks after the house and their four children. At first, everything seems like a fairy tale – the villagers are overjoyed at their arrival and selflessly offer them the help they need; they see in the newcomers a chance to rejuvenate the place and get village life going again. But the more the couple succeeds, the more enemies they acquire. The director follows in the footsteps of Ermanno Olmi and his Tree with the Wooden Clogs; offering profound insight into the region and its inhabitants, he avoids adding any dramatic episodes from outside this environment.

About the director

Giorgio Diritti (b. Bologna, Italy) learned about filmmaking while working with a number of Italian directors, particularly during the years 1983 and 1989. He was in charge of casting for films by various directors (in 1990 he did the casting for Fellini’s film The Voice of the Moon). He was involved in films by Pupi Avati, and now, as screenwriter and director, he teaches young filmmakers at Ipotesi Cinema, an institution headed by Ermanno Olmi dedicated to novice directors. Diritti gave his debut with the documentary A Sailor’s Hat (Cappello da marinaio, 1990), and he continues to make documentaries, shorts and TV films to this day. In his low-budget, independent feature debut The Wind Blows Round (2005), which he also wrote, he cast both professional actors and inhabitants from the region where the story is set, which adds to its undeniable authenticity.