A serene but complex film that begins with an investigation into the craftsmanship of the zampogna, a kind of bagpipe from Calabria, to expand into a more general overview of a series of local traditions, seven to be precise, from various regions of Italy — Calabria, Marche, Liguria and Sicily. A film that speaks of traditions that cross generations, with a delicate and contemporary gaze, so that certain musical expressions of the oral tradition survive.
Starting with the construction of a zampogna, a traditional Italian wind instrument, the De Serio twin brothers guide us through various regions of a deep Italy in a remarkable journey of musical collections and oral traditions. The pleasure of discovery and slowing down, in stark contrast to contemporary life in big cities, leads to encounters with music, stories, landscapes, and people who are guardians of memory and identity. A work close in spirit to the gestures of Michel Giacometti in his series Povo que Canta, with his musical and oral recordings throughout rural Portugal in the early 1970s, yet the De Serio brothers move away from a direct documentation style, opting instead for a poetic and cinematically fascinating approach. (Carlos Ramos)
