London, autumn 2020.
The city, hit by months of restrictions, shows multiple signs of injures.
Many areas are deserted and barely recognisable.
Tired of wandering, you sit down on a bench in a park.
Have you fallen asleep? How much time has passed?
You remember hearing music. Was it a tango?
Was that uncertain embrace a dream? Or did you slip into a rabbit hole?
Let it lead you to places where life is back again.
Piedmont, Italy. Early March. Bersano’s house faces the Nizza Monferrato railway station. Inside is the universe of the winegrower and poet Arturo Bersano: art, wine, food. Everything that makes life “alive”.
A few kilometres from Nizza, on a hill at the foot of Agliano Terme, lives Paolo Alliata. He calls this hill “Monsicuro” (safe mountain). Perhaps because that is how he feels there. Safe. Sitting under a tree, he tells the story of how he and the hill met. And of a prehistoric sea.
From prehistoric seas to streams. One in particular: the Belbo. Full of mud, fickle. Claudio Vaccaneo has no doubt: this is why the best Hunchback cardoon grows only here. Leaning on his hoe, he explains how a life can change over time, from oppression to vocation.
Some people swim in rivers, others make them resound, like the sculptor Piero Fogliati. With a kind of mechanical underwater orchestra of instruments called Liquimofoni. He came from Canelli: yet another hill surrounded by vine rows.
Seeds of Renaissance was conceived as a cross-genre project. Its main purpose is to inform in a rigorous yet entertaining way, combining elements of documentary, television and the web.
Certain aspects have been designed with an interactive version in mind, such as the colourful, playful graphics and the modular structure. In this web doc – interactive version of the film, after an introduction, the viewer can choose what to watch.
This is possible thanks to the non-linear narrative, involving a group of artists and food growers, their stories and their relationship with man-made/natural environments of exceptional beauty.