La creazione di significato (The Creation of Meaning) is set in the Tuscan Alps, where German occupying forces massacred hundreds of civilians during WWII, and follows the daily life of Pacifico, a shepherd born in the wake of the war among those same breathtaking landscapes. Blurring fiction, documentary and collaborative ethnography, the film explores the transient nature of meaning by glimpsing what Borges calls an Aleph, an allegorical singularity in space and time where past, present and future overlap and intertwine.

Simone Rapisarda Casanova

Italy/Canada, 2014

90 min, Colour, Mono

“remarkable for its vibrancy and generosity, […] full of wry humour and rich with unexpected pleasures and marvels”

‑ Jason Anderson (Cinema Scope)

“shot with a painterly Renaissance beauty, [...] its stirring power lies in the intimacy of detail and wry political observation”

‑ Joshua Siegel (MoMA)

“both poetic and philosophical […] a sumptuous work of film aesthetics”

‑ Peter Dickinson (Anthropologica)

“powerful and delicate”

‑ A. O. Scott (The New York Times)

“majestic”

‑ Melissa Anderson (The Village Voice)

“a surreal, mesmerizing gem”

‑ Emily Buder (IndieWire)

“ravishing”

‑ Neil Young (The Hollywood Reporter)

“bold and daring”

‑ James Hansen (Filmmaker Magazine)

“mesmerizing”

‑ Nicolas Rapold (The New York Times)

“a lovely, laidback reverie”

‑ Ronnie Scheib (Variety)

“transcendent”

‑ Benjamin Mercer (Brooklyn Magazine)

“organically funny and admirably cohesive”

‑ Vadim Rizov (Filmmaker Magazine)

“as mystically ethereal as vividly earthy”

‑ Christopher Bourne (Twitch)

“delightfully contemplative”

‑ Maria Garcia (Film Journal International)

“simultaneously heady and lyrical”

‑ Carson Lund (Slant Magazine)

“both imposing and intimate, it subtly blurs the boundaries between heaven and earth, past and present, naturalism and existentialism”

‑ Charlotte Bonmati-Mullins (Point de vues)

“it devises a way of seeing that is both oneiric and anthropological”

‑ Helen Faradji (24images)

“directed with a precision that makes highly ordered mise-en-scènes appear loose and impromptu”

‑ Clayton Dillard (Slant Magazine)

“a flattening of time and space by means of timeless beauty itself, [...] constructed from breathtaking images and a wonderful softness of direction”

- Daniel Walber (Nonfics)