MUT
Giulio Squillacciotti / Italy / 2024 / 18 min / Colour
It’s still dark when the day begins in the mountain pastures. Two boys carry out the age-old ritual of milking, while their parents make cheese over the hearth in the malga (mountain dairy hut). The boys then lose themselves in a quick game on their phones before hopping onto their trial motorbike. We’re in the highlands of the Bergamo region. In the local dialect, mut means “mountain.” Up there, cows graze peacefully as the boys walk through the forest, tending to the electric fence, ignoring the hikers passing beside them. The day in the high pasture becomes an allegory for the whole summer season. The boys repeat the same gestures performed by those who worked this land before them, and in doing so become a bridge to those who will follow. Shot in a format reminiscent of the old 4:3 aspect ratio, a subtle nod to the vertical formats of modern smartphone video, the film is a gentle portrait, reminiscent of the past without nostalgia, portraying the present without rhetoric, and quietly suggesting the possibility of a different future.
Giulio Squillacciotti
An artist and filmmaker, born in Rome in 1982. After studying Art History and Literature in Rome and Barcelona, he specialized in Visual Arts at IUAV Venice. He was later a fellow at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, where he developed the project What Has Left Since We Left (2021). His works have been exhibited and screened at the Biennale di Architettura in Venice and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, among others.
