Fioritura
16mm B&W film
5'08"
in collaboration with Elena Butica

Synopsis

Filmed on 16mm, Fioritura is a visceral suspension of the everyday. The protagonists navigate fizzing emotions and internal contradictions; they use disgust and touch to transition from the superficial to the personally profound. The bowels and the city cry for their attention. As sweeping hands dream of manicure, messages attached to herbal tea bags become instant prophecies.

Fioritura is shot on 16mm and developed and processed manually at Filmwerkplaats, WORM Rotterdam.

Artist Statement

The main concept behind making Fioritura was to depict one’s inner struggles through the domestic and the urban. We worked with the concept of disgust as an essential element in accepting and dealing with what needs to be addressed - touching goo with bare hands, collecting crumbled dust or entangled hair in spaghetti. The hands are a recurring element, both of the inner world and the external one. They squeeze, hold, clean, press, show.

The process of making the film embraces the same tactility - it is shot on 16mm and developed and processed by our hands. Besides directing and editing it collaboratively, we also took turns in front and behind the camera. Aesthetically, we manifested the inner world by altering the shooting technique of the Bolex. In this way, we obtained a fioritura - a flickering image anchored in a distorted version of the domestic. Fioritura is a technical term for a singing technique in which the operatic singer improvises intense reverberating sounds. The soundscape is built around this concept - a complex embellishment of reverberating sounds that shift from proximity to distance. It invites the viewer to dwell in the bowels and the strangeness of the voice, while always keeping the city as the backdrop.

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