the forest is like the mountains

This is the story of a small community that lives outside the boundaries of so-called civilization. It is also the story of a place where tiny miracles happen every day. Not the syrupy miracles of the movies where everything fits a predetermined narrative structure. This film is about the deeply-rooted feeling of belonging to a place and a story. While making their film, the directors lived following the path of the seasons and the vital, existential rhythm that is ingrained in the fabric of life itself. The filmmakers adopt a careful observational approach that allows them to be admitted in a world that still manages to retain all its wisdom and knowledge, even though threatened with extinction. Walking the thin line between anthropological observations and a carefully textured cinematic creation, the film becomes a poetic and a political statement. Choosing the exact spot where the camera has to be placed thus becomes the filmic counterpoint to the very existence of the community, whose life reminds us to retain our human values against those who urge us to go global.

Giona A. Nazzaro