Perhaps a mountain cannot belong to anyone, but memories and its presence within them result in something steeped in tradition. But everything that one looks upon with nostalgia has to be confronted with grown-up eyes. What do we do with the death (of the symbolism) of a mountain?
What is a mountain if not a large geological structure? From a human point of view, it is a barrier and therefore a place of passage. Mountains have always been natural frontiers between territories, but what is left of them in a Europe with freedom of movement? Nuno Escudeiro collected stories in Briançon, in the French High Alps, and in the Susa Valley, in the western part of Piedmont, and to these he added home movies from the Superottimisti Archivo di Film di Famiglia. From these materials, which merge imperceptibly with contemporary images of the same region, the director has developed, with Clémentine Coutant, a testimony, as real as it is metaphorical, of a golden childhood in the mountains that ends in the current refugee crisis. Destroying the mountain implies eliminating the traditions and the experiences that are attached to it, but it is also a way to give birth to something new, free from national dominance. One must become a mountain so that it can die, with us. (Ricardo Vieira Lisboa)
