LA STRADA DI PODESTARIA
THE ROAD TO PODESTARIA
Giorgio Oppici, Aldo Ottaviani / Italy / 2025 / 18 min / Colour
European premiere
The Stuparich brothers, Giani and Carlo—both writers from Trieste and volunteers in the First World War—each experienced a different connection to the Monti Lessini. In 1915, Carlo was stationed as an officer on the high pastures of Lessinia, assigned to work on the military road of Podestaria. From that remote place, he wrote moving letters to Giani. His words express a deep melancholy for the days spent on those barren slopes, brushed by thick mists. After the war, and after the death of Carlo, who took his own life in battle rather than surrender to the enemy, Giani returned to those same mountains in what felt like a pilgrimage, and wrote the short story La strada di Podestaria. From the choice to film in black and white, the directors seem to evoke the emotional landscape Carlo himself inhabited, marked by wonder and solitude. The landscape of the Lessinia is portrayed in silence, in the contemplation of its high pastures crossed by white roads once built for war and now traveled in peace.
Giorgio Oppici
Born in 1960, since 1979, he has worked in film and communication. He lives and works in Valpolicella, in the hills north of Verona.
Aldo Ottaviani
A journey to China and Tibet in 1987, reaching the base of Mount Everest, sparked his passion for photography.Upon his return, he made it his profession.
