a film from our Festival outside the Uffizi
Free admission
莫尔道嘎 Mò ěr dào gā
by Jinling Cao, 2021, running time 120', OV with English and Italian subtitles.
Writing Credits: Cao Jinling
Cinematography: Mark Kee Ping-Bing
Editing: Liao Ching-Song, Huang Zimo
Music: Lim Giong
Production: Liao Ching-Song
Starring: Wang Chuanjun, Qi Xi, Si Ligeng.
A film of environmental sensitivity, shot in the mountains of Inner Mongolia where the indigenous community lives in mystical harmony with nature. In the 1980s, in the name of economic growth, a logging crew devastates the Moerdaoga forest, causing floods and landslides that force the inhabitants to flee.
The international title of the film, Anima, is inspired by China's oldest religion, animism, expressing a spiritual bond between human beings and their natural environment. The original title Moerdaoga, on the other hand, is the name of the magnificent forest where the events take place and is also the director's place of origin.
Set at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, at a time when China had begun its great economic reforms, the film tells the story of two brothers, Linzi and Tutu, members of the Ewenki Shilu minority, a matriarchal tribe living in ancestral respect for nature. The urge for modernisation and exploitation of local resources leads them to work as lumberjacks in the very forest where they grew up. Linzi is particularly attached to those places, so much so that he tries to prevent the felling of centuries-old trees. Chun, the widowed female protagonist, chooses Linzi as her man from the two brothers who are both in love with her, thus contributing to the estrangement between the two. She is determined to move to the city, looking for a better life. But soon, all the inhabitants are forced to leave the land devastated by hydro-geological disruption resulting from wild deforestation. Director Cao Jinling's strongly empathetic narration is supported by the evocative images and music of composer Lim Giong, who elaborated traditional ethnic sounds and contemporary musical elements.
Cao Jinling
After earning a doctorate in Dramatic Aesthetics from the Central Academy of Drama, Cao Jinling (China, 1978) continued her studies at USC'S School of Cinematic Arts. A member of the Chinese Society of Film and Literature and the TV Drama Screenwriter Working Committee of the China Radio and Television Association, she is the screenwriter of several films such as Meet Miss Anxiety (2014), Crying Out in Love (2016), Seventy-Seven Days (2017). Anima is her feature film debut as Director.
Filmography: Anima (2021), Days and Nights in Wuhan (2021), An Isle (documentary, 2023).
INFO
Piazzale degli Uffizi
Friday 26th July, 09:00 PM
Anima by Cao Jinling
original version with English and Italian subtitles
Free admission
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