Bolzano Film Festival Bozen: Special Award for the film starring Luigi Lo Cascio

“Il mangiatore di pietre” (The Stone Eater), directed by Nicola Bellucci and starring Luigi Lo Cascio, won the UNESCO Dolomites Special Award at the Bolzano Film Festival Bozen.

A story as hard as the mountains

The jury consisted of Roland Dellagiacoma (of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation Scientific Committee), Claudio Sartori (president of the South Tyrol branch of the Italian Alpine Club) and Ingrid Beikircher (Vice-president of the South Tyrol Alpine Club). They decided to award a film that tells the story of a “passeur” (people smuggler) with a closed-in personality, tormented by the events that have marked his life. The film is based on the book by Davide Longo (published by Fandango), and is also set in a harsh mountain environment among massive peaks: a place in which tales of frontier crossings and meetings between different languages and cultures are all combined. The authenticity and realism of the film made it the jury’s unanimous choice. The award was presented on April 13th by the director of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation, Marcella Morandini.

A festival to get to know each other

The Bolzano Film Festival Bozen is now in its 33rd edition, and has remained true to its original intentions: giving the public the opportunity to see films that are not always on general release, and introducing them to directors and emerging actors from Austria, Switzerland and Germany, with a consistent focus on locally based productions. As a result, the ideas behind these films often centre on the relationship between man and the environment, the richness implicit in linguistic and cultural diversity – as well as the problems involved – and the uniqueness and complexity of the mountain environment. In Bellucci’s film, these elements are clearly at the service of the story, but also play a dominant role thanks to its extraordinary realism.

Ph. Manuela Tessaro