TALIS MATER
Marco Rossitti / Italy / 2025 / 70 min / Colour
European premiere
In 1984, Renato Morelli filmed the documentary Le stagioni di Liz – Ciclo dell’Anno Contadino in Val di Fassa (The Seasons of Liz – A Farmer’s Year in Val di Fassa) for RAI Trento, capturing the life of the last remaining resident of Verra, the highest inhabited settlement in Trentino. At the time, it seemed those homes were destined to be abandoned. Yet, after her mother’s death, Assunta returned to live there. Combining footage shot with reel-to-reel tape and 16mm film in the 1980s with new digital material, Marco Rossitti resumes the documentation of the farming year, traditional techniques of material culture, and the popular religiosity with its symbolic and mythological references, unchanged across time. In the images from forty years ago women, whose husbands were away working in Switzerland, cut hay, rake dry leaves, and thresh grain. Today, by repeating many of the same gestures and maintaining long-standing habits, Assunta pays tribute to the memory of a rural world that, although transformed, still endures.
Marco Rossitti
Professor of Film at the University of Udine, he is also a director and author of essays. He has founded festivals such as Terre dell’Uomo and Dissolvenze and directed documentaries for Rai, Sky, and Sat 2000. He is head of the film/TV/multimedia section of the national project, “L’Altro Versante,” focused on Italian mountain landscapes and biodiversity. His film Custodi (2023) won an award at the Trento Film Festival and a special mention at the Film Festival della Lessinia.
