02/09/2003 - In his first film, the Sardinian director investigates his homeland with an anthropological eye. A four part film with a cast of non-professionals

Sardinia divided between the old and the new is the real protagonist in Ballo a tre passi, the first feature length film by Salvatore Mereu, which was presented at Critics’ Week yesterday. It investigates the archaic island world of shepherds and farmers, a world that every so often does come into indirect contact with modernity. The story is divided into four parts, following the passing of the seasons throughout a year long period. It reveals this little known world to the audience through a mixture of magical realism and anthropological research.

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In “Spring” children from the centre of the island discover the sea for the first time, in “Summer” a lonely shepherd is introduced to the universe of women, here represented by a uninhibited French tourist. “Autumn” is a time of marriage and dejection for a young woman who has just entered a convent, and the year closes with “Winter” under the sign of old age and death. This last chapter of the film is different to the other three in it’s tone and outlook, and it is a deliberate tribute to Fellini’s dream-like cinema. Mereu explains : “Before I became a director, I was a very attentive cinemagoer. The film is a collection of many stories and characters I’ve loved”.

The film is produced by Gianluca Arcopinto and Andrea Occhipinti, with support from the Italian Ministry of Culture and contributions from the Sardinian Regional Institute of Ethnography. There are many non-professional islanders in the cast of Ballo a tre passi, and the intense close-ups of their faces is a reminder of Pasolini’s films. There are also two internationally known actresses: Caroline Ducey (Romance and The Soul Keeper) and the Israeli, Yaël Abecassis, who starred in Kadosh by Amos Gitai. The film will be released in Italy on September 19, but during the Venice Film Festival some foreign distributors have already shown interest in buying the film.

(Translated from Italian)