The Creation of Meaning

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The Creation of Meaning
Film poster
La creazione di significato
Directed bySimone Rapisarda Casanova
StarringPacifico Pieruccioni, Alexander Auf Der Heyde, Siria Battelli, Bartolomeo Puccetti, Cinzia Bertuccelli, Maria Paola Casanova, Francesco Marchetti, Andrea Taccetti, Diego Bonuccelli, Marco Bonuccelli, Robert Walter Colombini, Marco Bondielli, Daniele Eschini, Alessandro Elmi, Massimiliano Pisano
Release date
  • August 2014 (2014-08) (Locarno)[1]
Running time
90 minutes
CountryItaly-Canada
LanguageItalian

The Creation of Meaning (Italian: La creazione di significato) is a 2014 experimental film directed by Simone Rapisarda Casanova.

Plot[edit]

An elderly shepherd, Pacifico Pieruccioni, is forced by the economic crisis to give up his house and land in the Italian mountains, where his parents had fought in the Resistance against the German Army during World War II. Oddly enough, the prospective buyer is a young German. The two of them start a conversation about history and present-day Italy.[2][3]

Production[edit]

The Creation of Meaning is the second feature film by Simone Rapisarda Casanova. It is set and shot in the Apuan Alps, the landscape once crossed by the Gothic Line. The film is an experimental hybrid fiction-documentary inspired by Jorge Luis Borges's short story The Aleph.[4] Rapisarda Casanova’s stylistic hallmarks include his elliptical, metacinematic approach to storytelling, his unconventional use of non-actors, his use of natural light and colour inspired by renaissance paintings,[5] along with meticulously-composed static single-takes and diegetic soundscapes.[6] His approach to filmmaking is mostly process-driven, after careful research of the thematic base.[7] The intent behind such stylistic and methodological choices is to create a cinematic occasion where people and places may reveal their deepest nature.[8]

Release and critical response[edit]

The Creation of Meaning won the Best Emerging Director award at the Locarno Film Festival in 2014; in 2015 it won the Best of Festival award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and was acquired and released theatrically by the Museum of Modern Art, New York and by the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. The film has a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Awards[edit]

2014

2015

Collections[edit]

A frame from "The Creation of Meaning"

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Festival Scope".
  2. ^ "Shepherd Doc 'The Creation of Meaning' Finds Majesty in a Vanishing Way of Life". The Village Voice. 15 December 2015. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  3. ^ "Film Review: 'The Creation of Meaning'". Variety. 19 April 2015. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  4. ^ "Review: 'The Creation of Meaning' Views an Economically Torn Italy in Echoes of Earlier Days". The New York Times. 16 December 2015. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  5. ^ "Discovering the Spiritus Loci: Simone Rapisarda Casanova on The Creation of Meaning". Filmmaker Magazine. 25 August 2015. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  6. ^ Anderson, Jason (16 September 2014). "Pacifico's Heights: Simone Rapisarda Casanova on The Creation of Meaning". Cinema Scope. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  7. ^ "La creazione di significato". Mediterraneaonline.eu (in Italian). 2 February 2015. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  8. ^ "A tree that's no longer there: An interview with filmmaker Simone Rapisarda Casanova". Austin Vida. 2012. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 25 May 2016.

External links[edit]