Costa D'Angolo

Paese: Italia

Lingua: Italiano

Anno: 2014

Durata: 23′

Regia: Elisa Flaminia Inno

Fotografia: Elisa Flaminia Inno

Montaggio: Enrica Gatto

Musiche: Nando Citarella

Produzione: 15 06 Film, Pragma

Con il sostegno di: Regione Lazio; Comune di Maiori;
Centro Universitario Europeo per i Beni Culturali Villa Rufolo – Ravello (Salerno)

Con il patrocinio di: Provincia di Salerno

Sinopsis

During the time of the Republic of Amalfi, Maiori was the heart of maritime trade. The wide bay was full of vegetable gardens and gardens and the economy was mainly based on agriculture. In 1954, a terrible flood destroyed the town and the reconstruction changed its appearance. Together with rural life, the people of Maiori lost their memory, but some still preserve it, perhaps for the last generation. A journey between the land and the sea of ​​the Amalfi Coast, a window on the present that opens onto a past rich in culture and memory that is still alive.

In the mountains of Maiori, a town on the Amalfi Coast, an ancient world survives that has escaped the transformations of modernity. In the woods overlooking the sea, lemon pickers, muleteers and shepherds live a life outside of time according to the customs and traditions that have belonged to this land for centuries. A few meters from the seashore, Maiori is a modern tourist town: buildings, beach resorts and a population that lives far from that ancient world from which it comes and that it ignores as if it did not exist.
In the soul of the “new” Maiori residents there is an open wound, caused by the transformation of the town following the flood of the Reginna Major river, which in 1954 destroyed vegetable gardens and gardens by the sea. During the reconstruction, the vegetable gardens became concrete buildings and the beaches hotels and shops that erased rural life. Cristina remembers the sulphurous water that was sold in the middle of the street, the power of the uncontaminated sea and the reconstruction of the maritime soil of the corner coast area, the only place not besieged today by the tourism business.
Teresa D’Amato belongs to one of the ancient families of Maiori, she lived through the transformation of her town, the landing of the American allies, the flood and the reconstruction. The Liciccone family lives off the harvest of their lemon grove, one of the oldest in the area. The scratched arms of the working women mark a slow and constant rhythm of those who for generations have worked a wonderful and bitter land at the same time. Pietro was the biggest lemon trader in the area, when women carried them on their shoulders to the beach and ships took them to England. After the flood of 1954, the town changed its appearance in just a few years, farmers and fishermen lost their lands and beaches, forced to emigrate or become lifeguards and waiters. The history of Ciccio’s family has gone hand in hand with the transformation of the town. Son of farmers who became emigrants and then lifeguards, Ciccio manages a small strip of beach that has remained free in Maiori, the Costa D’Angolo beach, keeping alive the love for his town and giving back to the people of Maiori a piece of their memory.

Trailer

Director’s Notes

The idea of ​​making this film was born from the need to tell a discovery. I have been visiting Maiori since I was a child and one day I realized that there was an ancient world that I had never seen in my whole life. A world made of culture, memory and a humanity that carries the cultural heritage of Mediterranean Italy. This universe appeared to me to be much more valuable than what is proposed to the many who visit these places. I began to meet people who told me the story of this town and opened the doors to a precious world, made of lemon groves, music, work and ancient traditions. When I began to enter the houses and the countryside I understood that the town had an open wound, a story to tell. The reconstruction that followed the flood of 1954 distorted the soul of Maiori in favor of a voracious, destructive modernity. A wild reconstruction wounded the soul of the town: the change was not only urbanistic, but also social and anthropological. The film tells the story of the transformation of Maiori, through the lives of the people who have lived the last sixty years of the town’s history.

Costa d’Angolo is a creative documentary, an auteur film that tells my personal point of view on this place and its inhabitants. The film develops through the language of direct cinema and the dualism of the surrounding environment is the soul of the cinematic gaze. The film uses the photographic repertoire provided by the Centro di Cultura e storia amalfitana, which supported the photographic research, together with the photographers Landi and Dell’isola. The black and white images are soundtracked by a sound design that enhances their impact, animating them as if they were alive. The musical theme of the film is by Nando Citarella and the soundtrack alternates traditional songs and songs recorded on site. The warm and pastel-toned photography tells the characters and actions, returning them to the viewer uncontaminated. The editing builds the story of the film like a spider’s web, allowing the viewer to experience this land and its history as I experienced it.

Scene photos

Press

Partecipatios

List of participations in reviews, festivals, etc.;

Awards

List of any awards and prizes

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