The Terra Madre (Mother Earth) conferences, organized by Slow Food and held in Turin, Italy in 2006 and 2008, attracted some 6,000 delegates, activists and farmers from 153 nations to meet and exchange ideas, experience and plans for the future of food production and sustainability. Italian auteur Ermanno Olmi also attended the conference to document the event. Now in his late-70s, Olmi (Tree of Wooden Clogs) has reached the state previously occupied by fellow countrymen Fellini and Rossellini. He is free to reinvent the documentary form, which is exactly what happens in Terra Madre. Beginning with the Terra Madre conference itself, the film branches off into multiple narratives, including a sojourn north to visit the International Seed Bank on the Norwegian Island of Svalbard. This remote frozen place is home to a veritable Noah’s Ark of seeds, housing more than 4 million samples. Trips to Italy and India are interspersed with a variety of conference delegates offering both insight and advice, before gently settling on a remote Italian farm.
Here is where something remarkable happens. All the speechifying and theory pale before the simplicity of old fashioned farming. As the film moves from rhetoric to reality — cycling through the seasons of planting, harvesting, cooking and eating — traditional documentary falls away, and a singular type of poetry emerges. In a quiet and largely solitary world, an aging farmer, anonymous and not all that friendly, with a face deeply creased and furrowed by a life of hard work, tends his garden; the images are initially accompanied by a warm rumble of narration, until even words cease and only birdsong and the buzzing hum of life form the background to life lived on the land.
A poem to beauty, food and the slow passage of time, Ermanno Olmi’s documentary possesses a remarkable grace and a rare form of humility. Terra Madre is a ravishingly beautiful ode to the earth in all its fecundity and abundance.
Director’s biography
Renowned Italian filmmaker Ermanno Olmi was born in 1931 and has directed move than 65 films. His talents also include cinematography, acting and set design. Olmi has received multiple accolades including the Palme d’Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and a David di Donatello award. This master of world cinema now brings his point of view to the subject of food production and the economic, ecological and social implications therein — this documentary d’auteur bears the classic marks of Italian neorealist cinema with its long, slow takes and beautiful imagery.
Opening Night Party Harrison Galleries (901 Homer Street) — 9:30pm
Join us following the Opening Night Film for a Terra Madre evening celebrating Italy and the Slow Food movement. Enjoy fine food and wine while listening to live entertainment.
